Conquistadora (53 page)

“Abuelo never said anything to me,” Miguel said.

“It was a delicate business, young man. I’m sure he didn’t wish to worry you or your grandmother, may she rest in peace.”

Miguel remembered the angry voices from the bedroom the afternoon don Simón brought the news about Maestro de Laura. He was suddenly overwhelmed by guilt.

Mr. Worthy gave him a few moments, then continued. “It appears that Dr. Betances, several of his associates, and others are soon to be exiled again. It would be better for you to leave voluntarily than to
be
desterrado
. Let me be clear: if the authorities act against you, the government can seize your property and assets—all of it—and make it difficult for you to ever live on the island with the same freedom you now enjoy.”

Miguel’s head throbbed with fear, anger, and guilt. “What you’re saying is that either the slaves or I can be free, but not both.”

Mr. Worthy sat in his swiveling chair again, placed his hands on the desk as if in prayer, and looked at Miguel. “My work prevents me from public displays of my private views, but that doesn’t mean I share the prevailing opinion of how this island should be governed.”

Miguel didn’t know what to say. Mr. Worthy was an
estadounidense
, and criticizing the Spanish government could get him deported. He didn’t understand why Mr. Worthy would expose himself to him. Members of the society were never supposed to either admit their membership or ask anyone else if they were involved, but he now wondered whether Mr. Worthy was one of them.

Miguel again turned to the window with the sense that men discussing important things must allow weighty pauses between them. His eyes were focused on the scene before him, but he was more aware of the clopping hooves on the cobbles, squealing carriage wheels, flags and sails flapping on the breeze, the grunts of stevedores as they carried loads upon their backs along the docks.

“I came here with the goal of freeing the slaves at Hacienda los Gemelos,” Miguel said quietly, “but you’ve given me much more to think about than I expected.”

Mr. Worthy also turned to face the window and the busy harbor. After a moment, he spoke again. “While I’m not at liberty to contravene your grandfather’s will, I can help you look for ways to fulfill your humanitarian aims,” he continued. “For example, your will can specify that the slaves be freed upon your death. It’s standard practice among slave owners.”

Miguel flinched; he hated the sound of those words applied to him. “I understand. Please include it in the document you’re drafting.”

“Of course,” Mr. Worthy said, noting it again on the pad before him. “And upon your twenty-fifth birthday, you can dispose of all your property as you like. The trust can’t interfere, although I hope you will allow me to advise you.”

“Of course. Thank you, Mr. Worthy.” Miguel stood and extended his hand. “I appreciate your help.”

“If I can be of further assistance arranging your journey—”

“I’ll let you know.”

Miguel drifted down the hallway, pushed by a wave of pen scratches against parchment, of fluttering papers, of secretaries and clerks in muted garments, of their hushed voices, of the smell of ink, of the floating motes inside a triangulated sunny shaft on the painted cement wall, of the stillness and heat of the approaching equinox as he stepped into the cobblestone street.

The slamming of doors as merchants shuttered their businesses for the
almuerzo
and siesta fractured the sense that he was in a dream. Pedestrians hastened indoors, the street cleared, and Miguel faced the stark reality that he was about to leave Puerto Rico for the first time in his life. There’d be no time to visit Hacienda los Gemelos, an idea that hadn’t occurred to him until Mr. Worthy said he couldn’t go there. He was strangely elated, as if having an excuse not to visit his mother had weighed on him. I’ll go there first thing after I return from Europe, he thought.

He knew that the Miguel who walked into Mr. Worthy’s office didn’t leave it. The Miguel who went inside had dissolved among bills of lading, notarized documents, leases, contracts, and brown folios knotted with ribbon. He had all the right instincts, but not the strength of character to stand on his principles. Betances had already been exiled once, returned to Puerto Rico, and it appeared that he was about to be
desterrado
again. How much had the patriot lost in his struggle to free men and women whom he didn’t even know? Miguel was a different man. The minute his easy life was endangered, his integrity crumbled. He had another long-forgotten memory: his mother under a tree, still as a post, while everyone and everything in the
batey
whirled and circled around her. It could not be a real memory, it could not have happened that way, but that was what he remembered, her stillness and her black eyes staring at him.

It was probably a good thing for his growing sense of self that he wasn’t going to face his mother’s shrewd, penetrating gaze at Hacienda los Gemelos.

1860–1865

During the
zafra
, Severo Fuentes had no time for society. While he had daily interactions with men, he could rarely be with them as equals. His power over their lives prevented him from befriending the day laborers and small farmers. He felt comfortable among military officers and ship captains, but as a landowner he belonged to the settled establishment, not to the transient hierarchical society of soldiers and sailors. The business and professional men in town were not disposed toward greater intimacy with him than civility demanded because many of them were indebted to him.

From time to time Severo called on Luis Morales Font, the only planter in the environs who always seemed happy to see him. Severo came away from those visits with a particular repugnance for the older man. Don Luis was obsessed with his vigorous youth, and Severo endured hours of the old man’s gleeful recollections of his priapic feats with the female slaves. His only surviving son, Manolo, had no interest in agriculture. In 1860 he married an
española
who refused to live in the
campo
, and they were building a house in what was becoming the elegant part of Guares. Every now and then, Severo Fuentes saw Manolo and his haughty wife, Angustias, strolling around the Guares plaza and wondered what the pompous young man would think if he heard his father reminiscing about his escapades.

Don Luis was no longer the threat to Hacienda los Gemelos that so worried Ana in their first years. Then he was younger and mostly sober, all smiles and ingratiating charm. After Faustina and his older son died in the last days of cholera, Luis sank into liquor. Over the years he’d become a violent drunk who mistreated his remaining
slaves more now that his wife wasn’t there to curb his temper. Severo only called on him so that San Bernabé didn’t dissolve into ruin like its owner. Luis was heavily mortgaged to him, and Severo expected that the farm and its slaves would fall into his hands. This certainty became greater when, in December 1860, don Luis suffered a stroke that paralyzed him from the waist down. He recovered his faculties but, in spite of Manolo’s entreaties, refused to leave San Bernabé. He hired an overseer and his sister to take care of him, both as abusive and vulgar as their employer.

After calling on don Luis, but before his Sunday nights with Consuelo, Severo rode through La Palanca, a hamlet of twenty shacks and
bohíos
that he’d allowed to develop on his less productive lands between Hacienda los Gemelos and Guares. During the
zafra
, the residents worked in the fields, and during
el tiempo muerto
they cultivated minor crops. A portion of their harvest belonged to Severo. The arrangement worked well. He’d created a reliable, more or less permanent community of indebted jornaleros who lived on land that would otherwise be fallow. What cash they earned during the
zafra
was spent on a
colmado
he provisioned, operated by a
campesina
and his illegitimate son, now eighteen years old.

The voice in his head had promised Severo that he’d ride the fields of Hacienda los Gemelos with his son, but since the cholera, Ana had lost interest in their lovemaking, and he wouldn’t force her. It appeared that, like Consuelo, she’d become barren. He loved them both, Ana because she was ambitious and a lady, Consuelo because she was neither. He wouldn’t give either woman up because she was unable to carry a live child of his seed. Instead, after ten years of marriage to Ana with no heir, he began to single out some of his illegitimate sons for the better jobs on the hacienda. The voice in his head hadn’t specified which of the thirty boys, by his last count from
campesinas
, so he kept an eye on them all, and kept them hopeful as he trained skilled laborers he could depend on. The boys lived on the expectation that if they did a good job Severo would increase their opportunities. A few dared imagine that he’d make one of them his heir and imagined themselves upon his fine Andalusian stallion, looking down on the valley from El Destino. Severo had once been a hungry young man, so he let them dream and compete against one another for his favor. But until he
was sure which one of them would succeed him, he wouldn’t allow any of them to call him Father.

Like Severo, Conciencia had visions of the future. As she matured, her visions increased, although she didn’t report anything as dramatic or disturbing as cholera. She foresaw the arrival in Guares of two new doctors, who appeared a month later to introduce themselves to Ana. A year after that, Conciencia saw men running from the
trapiche
in a cloud of steam. When Severo and the engineer inspected the machinery, they noted that one of the spanners was improperly fitted and would have injured workers and disabled the engine in the midst of operations.

Conciencia told Ana that her visions were flashes or shadows in the smoke, and she didn’t understand everything she saw.

“I wish you could see them, too,
señora
.” She finished patting Ana dry, then powdered her underarms, back, and inner thighs before dropping a fresh nightgown over her head.

“Do they frighten you?” Ana sat on a stool for Conciencia to braid her hair.

The girl stopped a moment, and Ana watched her eyes focus on a spot across the room, the brush in midair. Still with that faraway stare, Conciencia nodded as if conversing with a ghost. Ana shuddered.

“Are you cold,
señora
?” Conciencia returned from where she’d mentally retreated.

“It was like you flew away.”

“
Disculpe, señora
, but you asked if I’m scared.” She dropped to her knees and covered her face. “Sometimes the fire shows me things I don’t want to see.”

“What sorts of things?”

“If someone appears in the smoke dead, he or she will die no matter how many herbs I give them.” Her eyes were moist. “I do everything I can to save them, in case the fire is wrong, but if they’re dead in the smoke, they die, no matter what I do.”

“You poor child.” Ana gathered her in her arms.

“I wish the fire didn’t show a thing.”

“Maybe instead of wasting your effort trying to save those who are supposed to die, you can help them to die well.”

“Sí, señora.”

“You can help them to go
tranquilos
.” Ana held Conciencia for a few minutes, then let her go. The girl resumed brushing her hair as if their conversation never took place.

Ana thought for a few moments. “Conciencia, remember when Meri was burned? Was she supposed to die?”

“The fire doesn’t tell me about everyone.” She braided the right side of Ana’s head.

“Have you seen how I will die?”

“
Ay, señora
, I don’t want to think about that!”

“You’ve seen it? Is it so soon?”

“
No, señora mía, no
. You will be a very old woman!”

Conciencia was eleven, and to her, old could be thirty-four, Ana’s age. “How old, Conciencia?”