“No me digas,” Vicente said. “Of the husband or the wife?”
“Mostly it’s the husband who kills himself, sometimes it’s the father if it was his daughter who was assaulted. The shame a man suffers when his women have been violated.” The policeman shook his head. “Can’t say I’d blame him.”
“I’d kill the man first.” Vicente picked up the coffee cup again, and this time his hand didn’t shake.
San Juan
December 14, 1898
Dear Valentina,
¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo to you and yours! How are you, my dear sister? Please kiss my handsome brother-in-law and your children and tell them that their Titi Elena sends love from the whole family and especially from los abuelos.
Since Mamá’s nervous breakdown, I must employ an additional servant. Fortunately, servants ask for very little—room and board and perhaps a few coins—the country is full of unemployed people. How dull are the duties of an ama de casa. I don’t know how you’ve tolerated it all these years. Or do you spend your days staring out the window at the flamboyán?
Only last week, the Americans gave out flags to all the schoolchildren. Such a to-do en la plaza! Business is beginning to be very profitable for us, despite the devaluation of the peso. It seems I’ve inherited Mamá’s accounting skills. Ernesto has learned a few words in English and much of our trade is American. Many of the soldiers can read, and do they write letters! Ernesto and I have talked about one day traveling to Paris to buy papier à lettres. Don’t be jealous, it’s only a dream.
All my love,
Elena
P.S. I send the usual Christmas package with a few extra things for you. Thank the American soldier who loves to write his mama!
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
HAPPY 1899!
She sipped the cognac, loving the way it glided down her throat, its delicate warmth still on her lips. She and Vicente sat at the table and finished off Dalia’s French brandy. In the fading light, she felt a rush of feeling for her husband; it wasn’t the usual lust, no, not that, or even love, but something akin to gratitude for their years together, that they had each other when they had lost Evita. Then Vicente told her the merchants wouldn’t lend them any more money. “That’s bad news for us,” Vicente said.
Valentina braced herself.
“We can’t take out a loan against the farm.” He rubbed his eyes.
“Why would we want to do that?”
“You know that we don’t have any money, Valentina.” He stared inside his glass, at the golden liquor. “This year would have been a pretty good year for us. We would have been able to settle our debts and survive until next year.”
“But we can’t sell our coffee,” she said.
“We can’t sell our coffee, nobody can. And the only way we can get money without selling land is to mortgage it.”
Valentina got up and brought the kerosene lamp to the table. A moth fluttered around it. Vicente caught and smashed it between his palms.
“The merchants and the Americans are buying up land cheap when the debtors can’t pay off the loans,” he said.
She poured the last of the cognac into their glasses. When Vicente had told her that they had to have a serious talk after the children were asleep, she’d gotten out the bottle from where she kept it on a high shelf hidden behind the small tin of Spanish olive oil and the big tin of American lard that had long been used up and where she now stored a small bag of flour.
“We could go to your parents.”
“Valentina, no. We can’t.” He picked up his glass.
“They’ll help us. I know they will.”
“Papá is in the same situation. And he has three women to support.”
“What about Luisito? He’s your brother. Or Elena? I can write her.”
“Querida, no. Luisito is in bad shape, too. And Elena has helped us enough through the years.”
“Then—” Her voice shook.
“We need a miracle.” Vicente raised his glass.
She raised hers. “To a miracle.”
They finished the last of the cognac.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
A MYSTERY IN UTUADO
Vicente had just left his mother after an errand for Valentina—to ask Gloria for annatto seeds from the achiote tree that grew in front of the family home—when several men approached on horseback. He was surprised to see that they were from la Guardia Civil.
“Buenos días,” one of the policemen said. “Are you Raúl Vega?”
“Vicente Vega, his son, a la orden.”
“Is your father home?”
“No.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“When will he return?”
Vicente shrugged.
At that moment Raúl Vega rode up on his horse, seemingly unsurprised to see policemen. The policeman who had first spoken to Vicente asked if Raúl Vega knew a man named Claudio Mora Ruiz.
“Somewhat,” Raúl Vega told them.
“We’d like you to come with us to town to answer a few questions,” the policeman said.
“I was on my way home.”
“We insist, Don Raúl.” The policeman put his hand on his gun. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“I’m not one to make trouble,” Raúl Vega said.
“You, too.” The policeman pointed to Vicente.
At the police station, they learned that a certain Claudio Mora Ruiz, the nephew of one of “los grandes” de Utuado, had been shot twice, once in the heart, and his body dumped on Caonillas Road. Vicente wanted to ask about the second shot but didn’t dare. Raúl Vega didn’t seem nervous, he was whistling.
The captain’s pen was poised over a notebook. “Señor Vega, witnesses say that you once had an argument with the deceased. Do you deny that?”
“We had words once.” Raúl Vega crossed his legs.
Vicente stared at his father, openmouthed.
“Why was that?” The captain leaned forward on his desk.
“I don’t recall exactly, but I think there was some question about a few acres of land.” Raúl Vega took some cigarettes out of his pocket. He passed them around. One of the policemen offered him a light.
“What was the argument about?” The police captain brought a cigarette to his lips.
“It was some time ago.”
“Try to remember.”
“Mora Ruiz claimed some of my land belonged to him.”
“Did it?”
Raúl Vega shook his head. “I filed a complaint in court.”
“And?” The police captain stared at him through the cigarette smoke.
“The court ruled against me,” Raúl said. “There were no hard feelings.”
“Where were you on January 20th?” The police captain leaned forward in his chair.
Raúl Vega considered his cigarette. “My son Vicente and I were together on the farm.”
The captain turned to Vicente. “Is that true?”
Vicente looked from his father to the captain. “Yes, it’s true.”
“How do you happen to recall that date specifically?”
“Afterward, Papá came to my house. My wife cooked dinner.” Vicente remembered that it had been a rare visit from his father. Valentina had made tembleque with coconut milk and cinnamon.
“She’s a good cook,” Raúl said.
“Señor Vicente, how well do you know Mora Ruiz?”
“I’ve never met him,” Vicente said.
“Why do you think he was killed?” Raúl Vega knocked the cigarette ashes into an empty cup on the captain’s desk.
“All I know is that there are bands of men meting out their own brand of justice in the middle of the night. Maybe we’ll let the American military handle this one.” The police captain stood up. “Buenos días, caballeros, I don’t think we need trouble you again.”
Father and son rode through the plaza like two strangers with the same destination. Yes, the
y had been together on January 20th, but still, it was all so strange. Vicente patted his pocket for the packet of annatto seeds. What had happened to it?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
VALENTINA READS THE CONSTITUTION
One day Vicente returned from town with Raulito, whom he had found standing around en la plaza with other men hoping for work or food. He’d insisted that his brother come home with him. Vicente also brought a week-old La Democracia dated July 4, 1899, in which the US Constitution had been printed in Spanish.
They drank coffee while Valentina read bits of an editorial aloud.
“Listen to this: ‘Read the Constitution because a people constituted on a basis so free and democratic cannot bring forth tyrants. That is the reason why we trust in the justice that will be given to us: the offspring of those who signed that Declaration of Independence can do nothing less than give liberty to our people.’ ”
“Haven’t the Americans been in Puerto Rico a year already?” Raulito dunked a piece of hard bread into his coffee.
Valentina looked up from the newspaper. “Yes, they have, Raulito.”
“Keep reading,” Vicente said.
Valentina turned a few pages. “It’s long.”
Vicente stirred his coffee with a spoon, though there was no sugar in it; they’d run out months ago.
“This is called the Preamble. ‘We the people . . .’ ”
While Valentina read, the children wandered outside, Raulito dozed off, and Vicente refilled her water glass twice.
“Beautiful words,” Valentina said when she finished.
“Beautiful lies,” Vicente said.
“I wonder if this newspaperman read the Constitution before he wrote his editorial,” Valentina said.
“He’s probably one of the American lambe ojos, there are plenty of them around.” Vicente took the newspaper from her to see who had written it. “Yup, just what I thought. Lambe ojo.”
San Juan
July 10, 1899*
Dear Valentina,
How are you and the family? Mala suerte, we’re not quite as well as we once were. Many of the American soldiers are being sent back home to the States, and that means less money for all the businesses. We’ve had to let one of our clerks go and I’m spending more time in the store. Papá has been very helpful; he’s the one who goes to the post office every morning to get the mail. Mamá is the same. Every little sound from the street frightens her.
Ernesto is up to date on the tariffs and we are worried about your family. What are your plans? Can Vicente’s father help until the Americans ease their regulations? I hate to think of you suffering. You can always sell the farm and come stay with us until Vicente finds some kind of work. Try to convince him. It would be lovely to be together again.
Love to everyone and especially you,
Elena
P.S. We can still manage to send you a few things and I am preparing a large package of food tins and cans that Papá will take to the post office.
* Letter returned to sender
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE HURRICANE
It was difficult to sleep in the terrible heat of the first days of August 1899. There was something unusual about the air that escaped Valentina’s notice but filled Vicente with a sense of foreboding. Up on the mountain, he smelled flowers native to the coast. Then the night came when Vicente observed reddish clouds in the east instead of the west.
“The stars have lost their brilliance,” he told his wife, pointing to the sky. “Look at that curious white band on the moon. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Vicente took Valentina and the children to his parents’ house before setting out again to get his brother. He brought in the bundles. His father was carrying a gallon of water under each arm.
“You prepared your house for the hurricane, Vicente?”
“Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for?” He went to the kitchen.
Angelina called from the kitchen, “Vicente, don’t stand there all day talking to Valentina.”
“I’d better go,” Vicente said.
“I don’t like to stay in your father’s house without you,” Valentina said.
“Why not, when my father likes you best?” Vicente teased her. “It’s safer here.”
“Really, Vicente, I think you’re exaggerating the danger.”
“I’ve never seen that peculiar moon.”
“The moon, the stars.”
“And you.” He smiled at her as if he weren’t worried.
Vicente stopped back at their little house to nail pieces of wood to the windows and doors. He considered locking the pig inside, but better for the pig to brave the wrath of the hurricane than his wife’s fury. He drove the pig into the shed. He wished that he had slaughtered it earlier in the summer, and invited their neighbors to feast on lechón; they could have celebrated surviving a year of the Americans. He took one last look at the house he had built for Valentina, with its roof sloped in four corners in the traditional cuatro-aguas style. He rode past the chicken coop sheltered by mango and citrus trees. The wind blew cool on the back of his neck. He shivered in the sun, disconcerted that he could smell the coffee flower so far away from the coffee trees.
Vicente rode his horse up the rocky slope that curved around the mountain. Even those mountain-born like Vicente had to be cautious of the steep trail. He rode alongside a village of bohíos built of straw or corn husks until he reached the hut Raulito shared with his mother. Vicente found Eusemia sitting under the shade of a mango tree, fanning herself with a large leaf.
“It’s you,” she said.
“It’s me,” he said.
“I expected you,” Eusemia said. “This heat is a terrible thing.”
Vicente took off his hat and wiped his brow with his kerchief. “I came to take you to my father’s house, Eusemia. You and Raulito.”
“You’ve always been kind.” Eusemia stood to pluck mangos from the tree.
“You’ll be safer there.” Vicente looked at the hut made of plant fiber.
She followed his glance, then held out the fruit. “It has survived other storms. Here, take these to your mother.”
Vicente put them in his saddlebags. “You won’t come?”
“I can’t be with those white people,” Eusemia said, “but I give you thanks.”
Vicente knew she meant that she couldn’t be in the same house with his father. “Raulito won’t come without you.”
“Make him go,” Eusemia said.
Vicente found Raulito inside the bohío, adding yagua rushes to its thatched roof. There was a pile of straw on the floor.
“I came to take you and Eusemia to Papá’s house,” Vicente said.
“I’m staying here,” Raulito said.
Vicente stared for a moment at his little brother, knowing he wouldn’t be able to persuade him.
Raulito pointed to the roof. “It leaks when there is an aguacero.”
“This one is sure to be un tremendo aguacero at the very least.”
“Did you see the moon? It’s going to be a bad one.” Raulito packed some straw into the wall. Vicente helped him. Before he left, the brothers hugged each other.
When Vicente rode past the rows of bohíos, he saw men carrying palm leaves or plant fiber to prepare their homes for the storm. Women cooked on fogones while their children, the little ones naked, played in the dirt. The children ran alongside his horse, laughing as they raced it. Vicente returned their smiles, wishing he could do more than just wave goodbye. He wasn’t a man who prayed, but he mumbled a heartfelt plea for the safety of the people in their straw huts.
Vicente wished that his family didn’t have to shelter in his father’s house. But at least Valentina brought out the best in Raúl Vega, everyone said so. It made Vicente a little uneasy. He had once heard his mother comment to Inés how only when Valentina was in the house could she recall the charming rascal who had come to call on her once upon a time. Wasn’
t that so, Inés? Remember how charming he could be? Inés said, Yes, Angelina, of course she remembered, once upon a time Raúl Vega had charmed her into becoming his mistress. Vicente had a vague recollection of the day Inés had come into their lives, because that day was the only time Vicente had ever heard his mother raise her voice to his father. Mostly Angelina spoke to her husband in veiled sarcasm. Vicente wasn’t sure what had taken place between his parents, only that from that day forward, the widow Inés had slept on a pallet in his mother’s bedroom and he and his brother had carried their father’s things to the other end of the house. Vicente was in his teens when he realized that Inés was no longer called “la viuda Inés,” but just plain Inés, that she was his mother’s special friend, and that the pallet was gone from the floor. Inés and his mother shared a bed, but what was wrong with that, Vicente had once said to his wife, sisters often slept in the same bed, wasn’t that so?
“Elena and I didn’t,” she said.
Valentina had given him a look that he chose not to interpret. All that was important to him was that his mother didn’t stare for hours out into the horizon, as she had before Inés.
The rain had already begun when Vicente arrived at his parents’ house. In his old bedroom, Vicente changed out of his wet shirt and pants and into the clothes Valentina had brought for him. His shoes were soaked but he didn’t have another pair.
“The barefoot jíbaro has arrived,” Raúl Vega said as his son entered the kitchen.
Vicente greeted his father and kissed the women, receiving blessings in return.
Valentina was helping Gloria peel root vegetables. Vicente planted a kiss on her cheek; she smiled at him.
Raúl Vega was reading the pro-government San Juan News that islanders had nicknamed “el Esnú,” mocking the English name. Vicente’s father either proclaimed every article preposterous and an outright lie or called his countrymen who collaborated with the US government lambe ojos for kowtowing to the Americans. More than once, Vicente had witnessed his father tear the paper to shreds.
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