“The Americans couldn’t have crushed the Spanish without our help. We told them when and where to attack. Puerto Ricans were waiting on the beach at Guánica to guide them.”
Vicente had read in the newspapers about the Americans landing in Guánica, and that ever since the invasion, there had been a rush at the ayuntamientos throughout the island as Puerto Ricans registered their children as Americans. Most likely, there were now hundreds of children named Jorge Washington. So many Abraham Lincolns and Tomás Jeffersons born that first week alone. Vicente looked at Emiliano Morales, a skinny man whose face and neck were burnt dark caramel by the sun, one of many Puerto Ricans who believed that the Americans had come to save them.
“The men must be thirsty,” Vicente said. “My boy can take them to the stream.”
“Here, boy.” Emiliano Morales held out the reins of his horse to Javier, and Vicente nodded permission. Morales relayed to the American officer Vicente’s offer and Raulito and Javier led the cavalry and the others to water.
“The Americans don’t want to be our masters, like the Spanish.” The guide took off his hat and wiped his brow with a kerchief.
“Glad to hear that,” Vicente said.
“You sound like a Spanish-lover,” Emiliano Morales said, taking an American cigarette from a pouch around his waist. “Don’t you know that America is ‘the land of the free’?”
“I know coffee,” Vicente said.
Two days after they met the US Cavalry, Vicente and Javier started down the mountain just as the fog began to lift on Cerro Morales. They walked alongside the horse, laden with sacks of guavas to sell in the market. When they reached the edge of town, they heard the cannons. Boom! Boom! Boom!
Javier reached for his father’s hand. “Is it an earthquake?”
“Did you feel the earth move beneath your feet? No? Then it’s not an earthquake,” Vicente said.
Utuado’s main street was crowded with delirious people who were cheering the way they had a few months before, when they thought Spain had bombed New York and won the war.
“It’s the Americans!”
“How pale they are! How young!”
People leaned out windows and shouted greetings to the cavalry, waving handkerchiefs and American flags. Pretty señoritas draped themselves over wrought-iron balconies and tossed garlands of roses and orchids on the parade of American soldiers. Women ran up to them with cups of fresh, sweet water and juicy mangos, while the men passed out little cigars made from homegrown tobacco.
The American flag now flew from the flagpole of the ayuntamiento, where the town’s citizens registered the birth of their children and paid their taxes. The Spanish flag had been tossed on the ground somewhere behind the mayor, who shook the hand of an American officer. The mayor proclaimed that after four hundred years as a Spanish colony, 1898 would go down in history as the year Puerto Rico became a free country.
“Surely the great poets will immortalize the Americans, the liberators of our beautiful island, who have broken the chain that has shackled us as a colony,” the mayor said. “¡Viva Puerto Rico americano! ¡Viva los Estados Unidos!”
The crowd cheered. Flowers and papelitos, tiny paper disks, rained down on the soldiers. The military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
An old man next to Vicente shouted over the crash of the cymbals.
“Puerto Rico americano,” the old man said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FOR THE PRIVILEGE
It had been only weeks since the American invasion and Vicente didn’t know how to tell Valentina about the new tax that he’d learned about en la plaza. He went to his parents’ house, where his mother told him that Raúl Vega had already left for la finca. Vicente rode to the coffee farm. Raúl Vega had tied his horse to a tree branch, and Vicente dismounted and did the same. He found him at the top of a small hill, looking down at the grove of trees.
Vicente called out as he approached, “Papá, have you heard that el Presidente McKinley—”
“I heard.” Raúl Vega didn’t turn around.
“The Americans are trying to destroy us,” Vicente said.
His father took out a cigarette from his pocket and struck a match. “As soon as General Miles devalued el peso, I knew it wouldn’t turn out well for puertorriqueños.”
“What will happen to us? To our coffee?”
Raúl Vega opened his arms as if he could encompass all the land he saw in front of him.
“This was nothing but wild grass and woods when your grandfather Luis Manuel came in 1825. He probably stood on this very same hill.”
Father and son looked down at the shade trees, the guama and guava trees, the banana and plantain, the protective canopy above the coffee trees. They stood without speaking for a few moments as they admired the beauty of the vista. They heard the neighs of the horses and felt the sun on the back of their necks. It was the kind of day they’d hoped for all that long year—when the drought had come and gone, the war had ended, and they could dream of a good harvest.
“My father was a hard man. Fuerte, like men had to be in the old days. He was tough with everyone, his slave Benedicto, the people who worked for him—los agregados, los jornaleros—with me. Fuerte.”
His father had never spoken like that. “Papá—”
“This new tax will ruin us,” Raúl Vega said.
“The Americans say that it’s to pay for the military government.” Vicente adjusted his hat. “The United States is making Puerto Rico pay to be occupied!”
Raúl Vega brought the cigarette to his lips. “Puerto Rican coffee can rot in its own bean as far as the Americans are concerned.”
They stood there for a while, father and son, not talking, staring out at the green mountains in the distance.
San Juan
August 18, 1898
Dear Valentina,
We have just come from la Plaza Alfonso XII. As we waited en la plaza under the hot sun—everyone was there, rich and poor alike—no one spoke. A company of American soldiers lined up in front of el Palacio de la Real Intendencia, while on the rooftop terrace, others waited holding an enormous American flag. On the second terrace, on one side in full uniform, were the American generals—Miles, Grant, Sheridan, etc.—and, on the other side, the former president of Puerto Rico, the Honorable Don Luis Muñoz Rivera, and the rest of our government officials. The old bell clock struck twelve times and still no one spoke. Then we heard cannon fire from El Morro and from the American warships. The soldiers raised the Stars and Stripes onto a flagpole on the rooftop terrace of la Intendencia. We watched it flapping in the wind. We stood there in silence while the military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I swear that at that very moment the sun eclipsed, bathing the city in an orange light.
Ernesto says a new era has begun for Puerto Rico. Dios quiera, that it will be a good one.
I hope that you and the family are well, as we are, considering Mamá’s condition. I will write again very soon.
Siempre,
Elena
Utuado
August 28, 1898
Dear Elena,
The Americans are turning us into paupers. We had a good harvest this year, a miracle, Vicente says, considering the long months of drought. But what good is it when Vicente and Raúl have to practically give away their coffee to the creditors because the merchants can’t sell it to Cuba or Spain or France! And except for some place called the Hamptons, Americans don’t like Puerto Rican coffee! Nobody buys Puerto Rican coffee! And that means that the merchants won’t buy from farmers! What is to become of us?
My love to our parents and Ernesto and the children and especially to you,
Siempre,
Valentina
San Juan
October 22, 1898
Dear Valentina,
San Juan is filled with Protestant missionaries. They came with the army and you can’t walk down the street without one waving a Bible in your face. More than a f
ew ladies have had their heads turned by the soldiers. I know of at least two society damas planning marriage with Americans. It’s true that some of the soldiers are handsome with their blond hair and eyes the blue of el Caribe. I’ll be sure to keep watch over my daughter because she reminds me of you—headstrong, always daydreaming. The day she mentions the word “pirate” is the day she enters the convent. Luckily, there is one here in San Juan!
Everyone gathered at the harbor to watch the Spanish soldiers board the lighters that would transport them to the Spanish ships. The Spanish military bands played. They’re such wonderful musicians and we’ll miss them. The crowd waved and wished the soldiers a pleasant journey. Many of the soldiers had Puerto Rican wives and children, and it was heartbreaking to see these families torn apart, but the Americans insist on the departure of all Spanish military. Valentina, even these brave soldier-husbands/fathers were crying. Most of them will probably never see their family members again unless the soldiers are allowed to return to Puerto Rico or can afford to have their families make the voyage to Spain. What will happen to the wives and children left behind? It’s a tragedy.
On October 17, we woke early to go to La Fortaleza. Our stationery shop was closed by official decree, as were all the shops in San Juan. Yanqui soldiers with bayonets guarded every street corner. Dressed in our best clothes, we went to el Palacio de Santa Catalina, where the Americans had built a grand speakers’ platform like an offering to the gods, complete with roofs and awnings in red, white, and blue stripes. Valentina, I wish you had been here to enjoy the spectacle with us! The whole town was draped in the American flag, some as large as the buildings. All the Spanish flags had been collected from the townspeople beforehand (upon risk of a fine if they weren’t turned in) and stored away who-knows-where. Newspaper boys sold la Gaceta de Puerto-Rico with the American eagle on the front page instead of the Spanish coat of arms.
There was a story in the newspaper about some yanqui soldiers who caused a ruckus at the restaurant La Mallorquina. The yanqui general apologized to the people of San Juan and all the people of Puerto Rico for the shameful behavior of the yanquis from Wisconsin. We think it had something to do with the indecent way some of the American soldiers have accosted women on the street.
We cheered as the American flag was raised over the governor’s palace. The military band played the American national anthem. (It sounded almost musical.) Who would have guessed that we Puerto Ricans would be such yanquifilos?
All my love,
Elena
P.S. In another parcel, I will send you Idioma inglés en siete lecciones, sold on every street corner in San Juan. Ernesto is studying it because he says he wants to learn English and read the news in the yanquis’ own words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
A MAN’S HOME
Vicente woke to the neighs of horses and the muffled voices of men. He wrapped his arms around his wife under the bedspread and touched his lips to her ear.
“Wake up, los tiznados están en el batey.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he squeezed her hand. “Go to the children,” he said. “Under no circumstances are you to come outside.”
Valentina ran naked to the children’s room. Vicente reached under the bed for the gun his father had given him just a few weeks before. Raúl Vega had stopped by one morning to warn Vicente that a neighbor had been attacked by a band of tiznados. He’d hoped he would never have to use it.
Vicente went to the front of the house without bothering to pull on his pants; he opened the wood shutter just wide enough to slide out the nose of the gun. It was the kind of night when spirits and men up to no good wander blind in the fog. The men on horseback huddled en el batey; he heard them but could not see them. Vicente decided not to speak, but to wait the men out—to try to discern how many there were. He had only the bullets in his gun. His hand shook. He’d never shot at a man before, but he knew he would kill to protect his family. They’d heard that the men who had robbed Isidro Santiago down the mountain of his coffee harvest had also raped his wife. He’d kill all of them before they could touch Valentina.
“Come out before we torch your house,” a voice shouted.
Where had he heard that voice before?
“I’m giving you a chance to save yourself,” the voice said.
Vicente remained at the window, his gun peeking through the shutter. Something calmed inside him. He fired his gun toward the voice; he heard a groan. He ran to another window and fired again in the direction of the voice; at a third window, he fired a third time.
Somebody shouted, “There’s a bunch of them!”
Los tiznados rode away, but Vicente held his gun at the ready until he could no longer hear the horses. He sank to the floor, the gun hot in his hand, and waited for his heart to return to its regular beat. He found Valentina and their sleeping children curled together in Lourdes’s bed.
“Thank God you’re all right, Vicente!” Valentina looked up at him through the mosquito netting.
Vicente pushed aside the netting; he took her hand and drew her to Javier’s cot.
“You’re trembling.” He pulled the bedcover over them and wrapped his arms around her. He breathed in her scent that he knew so well and settled his thighs beneath hers.
“I would have killed any man who dared touch these.” Vicente cupped her breasts.
“You don’t mean that.”
“Of course I do, querida.” Vicente kissed her shoulder.
“Don’t start anything.”
“No?”
“The children might wake up.”
“The shots didn’t wake them, I wouldn’t worry.”
Later, when Valentina fell asleep, Vicente realized they were breathing in unison. When they had made love, the children asleep in the next cot, she’d pressed her mouth hard against his so that he could swallow her moans. He loved that about his wife, his Valentina, how loud she was, how free she was in their lovemaking. Once when Javiercito was a toddler, he’d come into their room, crying because her screams had woken him. Papi, why are you hurting Mami? Valentina had carried the boy back to his bed. Vicente could hear her say, Sweetheart, your father wasn’t hurting me. Those were happy cries from Mami. Now go to sleep, I want you to stay in your bed until morning. She returned to him, her hair half covering her face so that he couldn’t see her expression in the moonlight that slid in through the wood shutters. He loved her like that, when she made love to him like that, wild like that. She needed him then, wanted him then. He was sure that she didn’t wish for other things, not then, things that he wasn’t able to give her, would never be able to give her. Only when they made love did he feel that.
As he closed his eyes, he remembered where he’d heard that voice in the batey.
The morning after los tiznados tried to raid his home, Vicente hurried his horse down the mountain. He asked everyone he passed along the way if they knew Emiliano Morales. Somebody said, Oh, Emiliano Morales, I heard he’s in the hospital, had an accident while he was cleaning his gun, things like that happen when you clean your gun in the middle of the night. He was loco like that, the kind of man who would clean his gun in the middle of the night while decent people slept, but why did he, Vicente Vega, a peaceful family man, want to see Emiliano Morales? Not such a good idea, not after the things people were saying about Emiliano Morales.
American soldiers were everywhere—en la plaza, at the ayuntamiento where Vicente appealed for time to pay his taxes. He had begun to hate the Americans the way his father hated them, as others did, including some of the newspapers. He didn’t have faith that the well-being of the island was a priority for the Americans. Didn’t General Miles realize that when he set the price for the Puerto Rico peso, he only made life harder for Puerto Ricans? That many more people went hungry? Hadn’t they welcomed the Americans with flowers and mango slices served from the fingertips of pretty señoritas? Then why did they need the military to run their island?
An Americ
an flag now flew in front of the police station. Hat in hand, Vicente was taken to the captain. He was invited to sit while he told them about los tiznados and how he’d shot a man in the dark.
“So, you’re the one who shot Emiliano Morales.” The captain was drinking coffee, and he signaled to a policeman to bring Vicente a cup.
Vicente folded his hands in his lap to hide their shaking.
“We found Morales half-dead in la plaza. How do you know him?”
“He came up the mountain with the US Cavalry while I was in my finca.” Vicente accepted the cup the policeman brought him.
“That makes sense,” the captain said. “The Americans have been protecting their guides. Letting them rob the Spanish hacienda owners and not doing anything about it.”
“Why would they do that?” Vicente took a sip of café and was soothed; it was delicious, definitely Puerto Rican coffee.
“The Americans hate the Spanish.” The captain removed a folder from the desk drawer. “And they won’t help them unless it affects American interests.”
“I never killed a man before.” He spilled a drop of coffee on his shirt.
“He’s not dead yet.” The captain opened the folder.
“That’s good,” Vicente said.
“And even if he dies, who can say it was your bullet?” The captain looked down at the report. “You know who the others were?”
“It was dark,” Vicente said, “but Morales has that voice that rasps against your skin, so rough that you check for blood.”
“These bands have even ambushed la Guardia Civil,” the captain said, “but because they blacken their faces, it’s not so easy to capture them. Sometimes they rob their own relatives and they don’t recognize them.”
Yelling could be heard from the other rooms in the station. Vicente’s hands started to tremble again.
“It’s probably lucky that you shot him, Vega,” the captain said.
“How so?”
“Some of these bandits have been known to disrespect the women in the family,” the policeman said. “The shame has led to a suicide or two.”
The Taste of Sugar Page 14