She’d thought they had experienced the worst that could befall them, but now this—the parasol slipped from her grasp.
He placed a steadying hand on her arm. “The American governor confiscated our farm.”
“The American governor confiscated our farm. The governor?” Valentina paused after each word. “Our farm?”
“Not just ours.” Vicente took the newspaper from her; he ran his finger down the list of ads. “Forty farms for auction. Forty!”
“Forty farms.” Valentina sat on the grass, head in her hands.
Vicente sat next to her. “That’s forty farms last week. Who knows what Governor Allen will do this week?”
“Can he do that?”
“It seems he can.” Vicente opened the parasol, holding it over her head. They looked out at la naturaleza blooming again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BROTHERS
One November morning, the brothers walked down the mountain so that Vicente could vote in the local mayoral election. They hoped that there would be news about construction work.
“Raulito, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about calling our father ‘Papá,’ ” Vicente said.
Even after more than a year of living in his father’s house, when it was necessary for Raulito to speak to Raúl Vega, he called him “Don Raúl.” If he happened upon him alone in a room reading or looking through papers, Raulito greeted him as Don Raúl, bowing his head. Sometimes his father returned his nod.
“¡Papá!” Raulito stopped walking. “I couldn’t!”
Vicente stopped, too. “Don’t look so scared. At least call him ‘Raúl,’ the way Valentina does.”
“I could never do that!”
“Why not?”
They started walking again.
“Even my mother called him Don Raúl,” Raulito said.
Vicente shook his head. “I don’t like the way he treats you, I’m going to talk to him.”
Raulito tugged at his brother’s shirtsleeve. “Don’t! Estoy bien.”
“Did I ever tell you that when we were boys, Luisito and I called Papá ‘el General’?” Vicente chuckled.
“I saw you a few times with Luisito. I used to wish I was your brother so that I could live with you.” Raulito’s smile was shy; he was missing several teeth.
Vicente’s smile was wide, his teeth white and strong. “You are my brother. We’ll always be brothers.”
“But then I thought that I would have to leave Mamá and live in your father’s house.”
“Our father’s house.”
“Don Raúl’s house.”
“You’re hopeless, hermanito.” Vicente patted his brother on the back, laughing.
They heard the shouting as they reached Utuado. En la plaza, a crowd of men shouted accusations at a group of a dozen others, calling them traitors for selling out to their masters, loan sharks who cared only about filling their pockets, choosing American dollars over their country and countrymen.
They went up to a barefoot jíbaro. Raulito nodded a greeting. “¿Qué pasa?”
The man pointed. “The plantation owners and merchants don’t want those men here.”
“Who are they? Americans?” Raulito looked over at the men.
“Can’t be,” his brother said. “The plantation owners and the merchants love the Americans.”
“No son americanos, son puertorriqueños,” the jíbaro said. “They’re looking for men to cut cane in Hawaii.”
Raulito asked el jíbaro, “Where is Hawaii?”
He shrugged; Vicente shrugged also.
A fistfight broke out; some people placed bets. The police came; the brothers walked away with el jíbaro, not wanting to get mixed up in el revolú.
Raulito waited with his brother in a long line of men, many of them barefoot, for Vicente to vote. Afterward, Vicente bought a newspaper. They stopped at a stream on the way back up the mountain for a drink of water.
Vicente tossed the newspaper at Raulito. “Read what La Correspondencia has to say.”
Raulito read: “ ‘The Puerto Ricans who come into our mountains and pueblos to snatch up our hungry countrymen to work on the Hawaiian sugar plantations are a new pla—pla—’ ”
He pointed to the word; Vicente looked over his shoulder.
“ ‘Plague,’ ” he said.
“ ‘—plague on Puerto Rico.’ ” Raulito paused. “What’s ‘plague’?”
His brother took out his handkerchief and dipped it in the water. “It means another disease for puertorriqueños, like la tuberculosis.”
“You think that?” Raulito trailed his fingers in the stream, then touched the back of his neck, relishing the coolness.
“I don’t know.” Vicente wiped his face. “There’s no work in Puerto Rico. What is a man to do?”
Raulito held out the newspaper. “But what it says here? And those men in the plaza—”
Vicente waved away the newspaper. “Those plantation owners pay the Puerto Rican fifteen to twenty centavos a day, and the merchants rob him at their stores or with their interest rates. They’re a plague, too.”
“Keep reading?” A few sprinkles had dropped on the paper; Raulito blew on it to dry it.
“Read on.” Vicente stretched out on the ground, covering his face with his hat. “You read very well, Raulito. I’m proud of you.”
Raulito felt the prick of tears; his brother was proud of him. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and read on.
In the afternoon when the coquís began their chant, they started back home. Raulito liked the sound of the coquís. When he was a little boy, he tried hard to catch one of the tiny tree frogs. He never could.
“If you went to Hawaii, I would go with you.” Raulito glanced at his brother from under the brim of his hat.
“I wouldn’t go to Hawaii without you.” Vicente put his arm around his shoulders for a quick hug.
Raulito thought about the men in the plaza, not the plantation agents, but the other men, the barefoot ones in rags. There wasn’t any work for those men and they were forced to beg for food. He’d still be one of those men if not for his brother.
When they reached the batey, Vicente stopped and Raulito stopped, too.
“I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about Hawaii,” Vicente said. “There’s a lot to consider.”
“Valentina?”
“Yes, Valentina,” his brother said. “Everything.”
“Not a word,” Raulito said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
¡AL HAWAII! ¡AL HAWAII!
In town there was the battle of the handbills. Work in Hawaii! Honest Labor in Hawaii! Free Transportation for the Whole Family from One US Territory to Another US Territory! Free Housing and Medical Care in Hawaii! Schools for Your Children! ¡Compañeros, Don’t Abandon Your Madre Patria! Better Country Than Food! US Plans to Rid Puerto Rico of Its Citizens! Puerto Rico for the Americans!
Vicente tucked an advertisement into the band of his hat. He walked around with the leaflet for days and took it out to read often, although he had memorized every word. It seemed like the answer to all their problems. Decent pay for a day’s labor. A bonus paid every year. He would be able to save the bonus money since he wouldn’t have to pay for housing or medical care. They’d be back in Puerto Rico in two or three years. Four. By then there would be work to be had on the island. Maybe he could buy back his land from the American company that owned it. If he saved all he could, it might be possible. (Yes, it was a dream, but sometimes dreams come true, yes?) When they returned to Puerto Rico, he would plant coffee trees and take on other work, as he’d done before. One day again, he would harvest his coffee crop. The reality was that here, in Puerto Rico, when he swung his machete, he, Vicente Vega, former coffee farmer, former landowner, was a peón. Would it make any difference if he were a peón in Puerto Rico or in Hawaii? It would, according to the advertisement for workers for the Hawaiian sugarcane plantations.
•
Vicente show
ed her the handbill with EMIGRACIÓN PARA HAWAII in large block letters in the privacy of their bedroom when they were getting ready for bed.
Valentina smoothed out the creases in the paper.
“I think it’s the best opportunity for us right now,” Vicente said.
She finished reading it. “Why not go to San Juan? Elena and her husband would help us.”
“We don’t want to go to your sister like mendigos, Valentina.” They sat on the bed. “And what will I do in San Juan? I’m a farmer. I don’t work in a store like Elena’s husband.”
“But Vicente, we’ll have to leave Evita, and to think that I’ll never see my sister or my parents again—”
“Querida, Evita is gone.”
Valentina nodded. She stared down at the paper; her hair was loose, hiding her face. Vicente took her in his arms.
“Querida, there is nothing here for us in Puerto Rico, no future for our children. You know that, don’t you?” He felt her nod against his bare shoulder, her tears wet and cold on his skin.
Raúl Vega waved La Democracia newspaper under Vicente’s nose.
“Look! Your name is in the paper! My name is in the paper! ¡Vega! Right here on the list of men going to Hawaii.”
“In the paper! Why would they put my name in the paper?”
“So that other poor suckers like you will join up.” His father tossed him the newspaper.
Vicente read: Vicente Vega de Utuado.
Raúl Vega pounded the table with his fist. “That’s what they want—Governor Allen and all the Americans—they want Puerto Ricans to leave Puerto Rico so that they can have the island for themselves. It’s all there in the newspaper. All the reasons why the Americans want us to leave, all the reasons that we shouldn’t.”
Vicente read:
The native subagents working for Hawaiian sugar are willing to sell their countrymen for a dollar a head. Do not forget your heritage! Fellow Puerto Ricans, take care that you not fall into the traps of the American flesh merchants, take care that you not end up slaves in a strange land. Take a lesson from the way Americans treat us on our own island! Better to starve in your own country than in a strange one!
Vicente pushed the newspaper away. “Better not to starve at all.”
“We can continue to live together in this house,” Raúl Vega said. “Of course Raulito can go to Hawaii, if he wants. But you have Valentina—”
Vicente looked at his father. “You don’t care if Raulito goes? He’s your son, too.”
“He’s been living under my roof since el huracán, hasn’t he? He can’t complain.” Raúl picked up the newspaper.
Vicente shook his head. “You haven’t been cruel, that’s true.”
“Exactly.” Raúl Vega turned the pages of the newspaper. “Think this locura over carefully, Vicente. Don’t believe anything the Americans promise you.”
When one of the town’s committeemen lectured Vicente about how he was wrong to leave the island, to turn his back on la Madre Patria, Vicente said, What country are you talking about? The Puerto Rico once ruled by Spain, or the Puerto Rico with its new American masters?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
GLORIA
Why are you crying, muchacha? What has Vicente done? Tell me, let your Gloria comfort you. There, there, Dios mio, it must be something terrible for you to go on like this, it isn’t like you to be such a llorona. Was it Don Raúl? I’m going to make him some special tea and he’ll suffer such a terrible itch that the only way he will be able to ease it is by taking a blade and slicing—what’s that? Not Don Raúl? Bueno, then it can’t be anything so bad, because the worst has already happened to this family, no crees? It’s like that time the American preacher came to the house, remember, Valentina? Spoke English and nobody knew what disparate he was talking, but then he took out some paper and started drawing all these terrible things, pointing to us, we thought he was talking about el huracán, but then when he drew locusts and frogs and X’s on doors, somebody, was it you or Vicente, no, it was Don Raúl who figured out it was the story about plagues in Egypt that I never knew about, and we all stared at the preacher drinking our coffee, and finally he left, the papers still on the table and I fed them to the stove, what do you mean, I’m not making any sense, you’re the one crying and laughing at the same time, muchacha, dime, what is it?
Hawaii? What is this, Hawaii? ¿Qué? So far away? Eres como mi hija, Valentina. The daughter I never had. I’ll go with you.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
OFFERINGS
The beans and root vegetables that Raúl Vega and his sons planted after the hurricane now provided most of their daily meal. Gloria had gone to the vegetable plot to pull up some tubers like ñame and malanga for their dinner. Carrying a small sack, Raúl Vega came into the kitchen while Valentina and Lourdes were shelling beans.
“Lourdes, go help Gloria,” Raúl Vega said.
Lourdes did as she was told.
“What’s in the sack?” Valentina looked up from the beans.
Raúl Vega placed it on the table. “Open it.”
Valentina reached for the bag. “Rice! How did you get it?”
“I’ll do anything for you, Valentina,” he said.
“Please, Raúl, you’ve been behaving very well lately,” she said.
He had been waiting for the right time to persuade her, but she would be leaving soon. “Don’t go to Hawaii. Stay in Puerto Rico, with me.”
“You must be out of your mind to suggest such a thing,” she said.
“I feel a little crazy,” Raúl Vega said.
The way she looked at him, her dark brown eyes wide in surprise, reminded him of the girl he’d seen naked all those years ago.
“We can continue to live in this house together, you and me, Javiercito and Lourdes. And even Gloria.”
“Raúl, I appreciate that you let us stay here and how much you’ve helped us.” Valentina stood, putting the table between them.
“Things are harder now than they were before, but I’m sure you’re better off with me here than you’ll be with Vicente in Hawaii,” he said. “I can give you more than my son can.”
“Vicente is my husband, I love him, not you,” Valentina said. “You must accept that.”
“When you leave, it will be like losing the sun,” he said.
She smiled a little. “That’s sweet.”
Raúl sat down slumped at the table. Gloria and Lourdes came into the kitchen, arms full of vegetables.
“Valentina, look at all these—”
Raúl got up; they watched him leave.
“What did he want? Is he up to his old pocas vergüenzas?”
“¿Qué pocas vergüenzas?” Lourdes dropped the vegetables on the table.
“Go wash your hands,” her mother said.
The women marveled over the sack of rice and Valentina told Gloria everything.
“Poor Raúl,” Gloria said. “Las damas are in heaven having a good chuckle.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
GRATITUDE
One day in late November, Vicente brought home a newspaper and asked Valentina to read it aloud because her voice was so lovely it even made bad news sound good. She announced that Governor Allen had decreed a holiday in Puerto Rico called “Thanksgiving.” Governor Allen reminded Puerto Ricans to give thanks that all was right in their world: in the last twelve months, under the influence of good government, the crops had improved, the farmland had recovered, industrial and financial interests had become more profitable. Aside from the hurricanes, the island hadn’t been visited by pestilence or other calamities, and the general health of the public was excellent.
Valentina looked up from the newspaper and found everyone staring at her.
Utuado
December 1, 1900
Dear Elena,
Prepare yourself for terrible news—we are leaving Puerto Rico for the Hawaiian sugarcane fields. No queremos, pero Vicente no tiene otra opción. Ay bendito, Elena, to think
that I’ve fallen so low. I can’t help feeling ashamed. I wish—oh, I don’t know what I wish! Yes, I do know—I wish for a miracle.
Raulito and Gloria have chosen to come with us. We leave from the port of Ponce on December 26th. I was last in Ponce so many years ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t know it. I would like to take a last look at our hometown, walk by our old house, and show our children where their mother came from, but we are to be picked up by oxcart and taken directly to the harbor. Elena, how I wish that I might embrace you and our parents one last time, that I might kiss your children that they might know their Titi Valentina, and for you to kiss ours so they might know their Titi Elena.
Siempre,
Valentina
PART THREE
HAWAII
CHAPTER FORTY
¡ADIÓS, PUERTO RICO!
The oxcart driver slept on the floor of la sala because traveling at night was dangerous. Before dawn, the oxcart was loaded with the family’s possessions. The children carried their bundles laughing and chattering, they were so excited about their new adventure. At the last moment, Gloria refused to climb into the cart.
The old woman threw herself on Valentina. “Ay Valentina, no puedo, hija, I can’t.”
The children jumped down from the cart; they wrapped their little arms around the old woman, everybody crying.
Valentina patted Gloria’s back, making soothing sounds even as she wanted to beg her to keep her promise. How could she leave her behind, Gloria who had been like a second mother to her, who had taught her how to be a good country wife, who had cared for her like a daughter when Evita died, holding her hand in silence on days so unbearable that if Gloria hadn’t anchored her to the earth, she might have drowned herself in the river.
“I will write to you, Gloria, and tell you how we are so you won’t worry.” Valentina hugged her tighter, feeling the woman’s frail bones through the thin fabric of her dress, Gloria who had been plump and round once upon a time.
The Taste of Sugar Page 18