Conquistadora (25 page)

“You need not be concerned about me.”

She didn’t know what to do to help him, but she knew he was safe and where he went. Severo moved the laundress, Nena, to a
bohío
beyond the barracks. One morning, as Ana was riding by, she saw Ramón lying on the hammock inside the one-room cabin, Miguel curled on his chest, both of them fast asleep. They looked peaceful and completely in their element, like a
jíbaro
with his son, not like the
patrón
and heir of Hacienda los Gemelos. She didn’t feel anger or resentment toward either Ramón or his fourteen-year-old mistress for his betrayal of her as his wife. She was, rather, angry at his indolence, as if her refusal to leave Los Gemelos absolved him from responsibility.

It took her months to disentangle the paperwork jumbled by Ramón and Inocente. There was the notarized document deeding the land by the river to Severo, but Ana had to dig to the bottom of the second folio to find the original title. How the notary could have signed a deed without the title was beyond her. She spent most afternoons trying to understand their intricate finances. For example,
Severo Fuentes was an employee, but he was also a vendor, since half the field workers were rented from him. He owned several hundred
cuerdas
along the southern shore of the hacienda, which meant that in order to get to ships, products from Los Gemelos must traverse his land or be transported to the docks in Guares. He probably carried out his contraband business along the shore, one reason, she imagined, that there were no docks or buildings. But she imagined how much faster and more cost-effective it would be to move hogsheads and puncheons from a wharf closer to the
trapiche
, perhaps even from the cove where she’d first landed. It was a tantalizing idea to have a dock and warehouses so close, but it would cost thousands of pesos and take years to build, and Ana didn’t think Severo had that kind of money. What she found most fascinating was how dependent his future was on that of Hacienda los Gemelos. She gleaned all this from the ledgers and folios. Severo managed his own business, as far as she could tell, and she imagined that, while he entered the figures that he, as the
mayordomo
must report in the ledgers, his own affairs were in better shape than those of Ramón and Inocente.

An unpleasant revelation in the paperwork came from a series of legal notes signed by Ramón and Inocente to Luis Morales Font. Ramón and Inocente had borrowed 2,148 pesos at the astounding rate of 15 percent interest. She was furious, especially when, after collecting the papers, she realized that not a penny had been paid and the notes were due within the quarter.

When she was angry, she went into the gardens. Her plan to put the elders and young children to plant, weed, and maintain the orchards, herbs, and flower gardens was more successful than even she had envisioned. The soil was as giving and fertile as reported by don Hernán and the monks, travelers, and scientists, whose accounts she’d devoured before she emigrated to Puerto Rico. In the gardens there was always something to do that focused her attention away from the miserable numbers and Ramón’s disregard for their financial affairs. She had to talk to him about the notes to don Luis, but Ramón avoided her as much as possible. If he sought her company, it was to argue, and the easiest way to raise her temper was to remind her that they’d assured don Eugenio that the hacienda would be profitable within five years. If the next two harvests showed losses, Eugenio would sell.

“Obviously, we’ll lose money again.” Ana waved the notes of credit in Ramón’s face. “You’ve squandered our savings and indebted our future at usurious rates to that awful Luis.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Ramón said, more disposed toward the neighbor than to her.

“He’s calling in the loans.” She shuffled them in front of him. “Or did you think they were gifts?”

“Of course I knew they were loans.” He didn’t even look in their direction.

“He robbed us even before we came here. He cheated don Rodrigo. He’s hoping that we’ll founder so that he can get the hacienda at a bargain. Don’t you understand anything?”

“You don’t trust anyone. That’s why no one will talk to you. I should’ve noticed that in Spain. You had no friends.”

“And you have an abundance, all of them taking advantage of you.”

He shook his head. “No one has taken more from me than you, Ana.”

She winced and hoped he hadn’t noticed. “According to you, I’m always the one at fault. You take no responsibility.”

“You’re wrong. I regret that Inocente and I believed you. You would have said or done anything to get us to come to Puerto Rico. Anything.” He paused to let her interpret his meaning.

“You always circle back to old grievances and arguments. You wallow in regrets while I work as hard as any man on this land.” She put the notes in their folios, knotted the ribbons to keep them from falling out. “I get no praise for our modest successes, but I’m condemned for whatever goes wrong.”

“What we have endured in Puerto Rico is the result of your conquistador delusion.”

“This is where you’re wrong, Ramón. It wasn’t my idea to spend all our cash on land when we had more urgent needs. It wasn’t my idea to put us in debt to don Luis. That was you, not me,” she said. Offended and unwilling to swallow her anger anymore, she slammed the folios on the table and vented her fury with her only weapons, words that would hurt him. “It wasn’t my idea that Inocente ride to San Juan when it was safer by sea. That, Ramón, is your handiwork.”

———

“There they go again.” Inés pouted toward the
casona
.

Flora looked up from the pants she was hemming. She’d been listening to the rising voices while keeping an eye on two-year-old Miguel playing with two other children. “Getting worse every day.” She finished the stitch, ran extra thread inside the seam, then snipped it with her teeth. “Where Efraín?” She picked up the next garment, a pair of shorts for Miguel.

“Don Severo took him with more of José’s carvings for the sailors.”

“How much he keep?”

“Half. He gives the rest to José. At this rate, he’ll be an old man before he can buy his freedom. We have less than twenty pesos. We need hundreds.”

“At least he has something to sell,” Flora said.

“Did you make money before you came here?”

“Doña Benigna didn’t let.”

“But the law says we can work in our free hours.”

“The law says if master agrees.”

“Where I worked before,” Inés said, “the mistress rented me to other houses. Supposed to be my free afternoon, too, but she kept the money, never gave me a penny.”

“You’re lucky don Severo give José half.”

“You always look on the bright side.”

“What else am going to do?”

Inés was about to respond, but she pouted again, this time toward the carpentry. Miguel was listening to the loud voices from the
casona
, his lower lip trembling, his big eyes scared.

“Come here,
papito
,” Flora called. “Come to Nana.” He ran into her arms. She held him tight and Miguel pressed his face into the curve between her neck and her shoulder. “We go sing mother forest,” she said into his ear. He nodded. “Call me if she need me,” Flora said to Inés.

“Can I go, too?” Indio was at their side, tugging on Miguel’s leg.

“Me, too,” said Pepita, another playmate. Carmencita came out of nowhere. “I want to go!”

The children clamored around them, trying to get Miguel to lift his head from Flora’s neck.

“What you say?” Flora asked Miguel.

His face still pressed against her.
“Sí.”

“Todos con nosotros,”
she said.

They walked down the path toward the river. Flora sang and the children repeated her words. They loved to sing with Flora, who called the forest mother, even though in Spanish the forest was male. “
Gracias, madre bosque, por la sombra bajo las ramas. Gracias, madre bosque
, for many avocados to eat.
Gracias, madre bosque
, for the mangos sweet.
Gracias, madre bosque
, for little bird with yellow beak.
Gracias, madre bosque, por la araña que no pica.
” She lifted Miguel’s face. “Do you see something to sing?”

Miguel looked around shyly. “Thank you, mother forest, for the rock so big,” he sniffled, and the other children chorused,
“Gracias madre bosque por la piedra tan grande.”

For a place so seemingly far from a big town or city, news arrived in Hacienda los Gemelos from the outside world with surprising dispatch, due to Severo’s contacts with ships. Once Severo realized that Ana was a voracious reader, he brought books, pamphlets, and newspapers that somehow had evaded the censors in San Juan. Through them she learned that Carlist reactionary forces continued to besiege the tenuous government of Queen Isabel II. War raged between Mexico and the United States. Tens of thousands of Irish peasants were dying or abandoning their country for the Americas because of widespread blight on potatoes, their main food source. War, famine, and government instability were like tales from another history.

In her remote part of the world, Ana had more than enough tragedies and their aftermaths, and her own hardships were more absorbing than anything she could read. There were moments when she compared her present life to what could have been, examined her choices, and asked, What now, what’s next?

She’d turned her back on family, society, and country with the confidence and arrogance of a stubborn adolescent. She’d used every artifice to ensnare Ramón and Inocente into believing that they were as capable and entitled as conquistadores. She flattered and coaxed them even though she knew that they were irresponsible and immature, that for them life was about appearances, tricks, and games. Now she was almost twenty-two years old, had a child, had spent her
fortune. Her marriage was over, and Hacienda los Gemelos might fall into Luis Morales Font’s hands. If I’d followed Elena’s plan, I’d have Elena for comfort and affection, but I was greedy, she thought.

She missed Spain in unexpected moments. She’d be in the garden and recall the fragrant meadows studded with wildflowers in her grandfather’s farm, and the honey-scented air as she raced Fonso and Beba across the fields. A sparkle in the pond brought memories of Sevilla’s yellow light and the serpentine Río Guadalquivir reflecting silver clouds. But as soon as she was aware of them, she pushed those thoughts away because she felt disloyal to herself. This is my life now, she reminded herself, the one I worked so hard to get. No one will ever know what it cost, only what I’ve created.

History was both personal and universal, and Ana was conscious that it swirled inexorably whether people paid attention to it or not. She was curious about other invisible lives in untraveled places, aware that her own days were unseen and unknown beyond the boundaries of Hacienda los Gemelos. She envisioned someone standing in the same spot a century after herself wondering who else had stepped upon that ground, seen that tree, the pond, the stone shaped like a pyramid. Had her conquistador ancestors asked these questions so long ago when they stood on this land, so foreign, so far from Spain?

When Ana received a letter from her mother, she begrudged Jesusa’s effusive love now that she was across the ocean. But she grieved when news arrived of her grandfather’s death at ninety-three. He was found sitting in his chair, his legs on his footstool, his blanket on his lap. Unlike her parents, Abuelo Cubillas had encouraged her curiosity and valued her intelligence, and after his death, he continued to have an impact on her life. Three weeks after the news that he’d passed away, Severo returned from Guares with formal and impressive documents for Ana. Her grandfather had left her fifteen thousand pesos.

She said nothing to Ramón about her inheritance, worried that if she told him about the money he’d spend it. She wrote to her father and asked him to arrange that most of the funds be kept in an account in Sevilla that she could draw upon when necessary. She didn’t care that don Gustavo would know by this request that something was amiss in her marriage. When he confirmed her instructions, she
knew he wouldn’t interfere. He deducted the precise amount owed to Luis Morales Font—a total of 3,167 pesos, including interest—to settle the notes he held against Hacienda los Gemelos. She gave the bill of exchange to Ramón so that he’d pay don Luis.

“Where did the money come from?”

“A loan from my father,” she lied.

“You’d go behind my back to ask don Gustavo for a loan? He’ll think that I’m unable to take care of you and my son.”

“That’s precisely what he’s worried about. You seem more concerned about his good opinion than mine.”

“I do care more about his good opinion,” he said and, narrowing his eyes as if to erase her from his sight, added, “you, I despise.”

A cry escaped her lips, surprising her as much as it did Ramón. No one had ever said anything so mean-spirited to her face. She was thousands of miles from the only homes she’d ever known, where there was no love but never hatred, not hatred. She felt utterly alone in the world.

Ramón’s face changed from loathing to regret to pity. “Ana, I’m sorry.”

She stopped him with her hands, unable to speak because her throat was as closed as if he’d pressed his fingers around her neck and squeezed. All the angry words we’ve hurled at each other before this, she thought, had led here.

“Say something.” Ramón stepped closer, to touch her, but she hardened her face and backed away.

“There’s nothing that can ever expunge those words from my heart,” she said. “You despise me.”

“I didn’t mean it—”

“You did, Ramón. We have nothing left to say to each other.”

“What more do you want from me?”

“I want nothing from you,” she said. “
Nada
. You can abandon me here, if you like. You already have, with your
putas—
”

“They mean nothing to me.”

“Please don’t insult me, or your women, for that matter.”

“I won’t abandon you, Ana, or my son,” he said. “Yes, I’ve been unfaithful, but the pressures we’ve faced … this was supposed to be an adventure, but it’s a nightmare. No, don’t remind me we knew it would be challenging, but … I’m not made for this. I’m only still
here because of you and Miguel. I promised to try it for five years. I’m an honorable man, Ana, but I’m counting the days until January 10, 1850—nineteen months. No, I will not desert you. You see, I mean to keep my promise to you and to my father. But when the five years are up, we will go. If I have to drag you by force, Ana, we’ll go home. Whatever happens after that is up to God.”