Conquistadora (58 page)

Behind and above him, sails puffed and swelled, the high masts capped by snapping banners. Miguel’s clothes fluttered against his limbs and he pushed his jipijapa over his ears to keep it on, its brim bothering his cheeks, the back of his neck. To the east, a gray cloud hovered above the verdure. As they sailed closer to land, he was struck by the lilac and purple undulations like silk scarves beckoning sinuous mountains. Chimneys sputtered pearly smoke over the
cañaverales
.

Another beach sparkled beyond the jungled east leg of the cove, protected by a wall of palms on the landward side and by a narrow coral reef along the sea. High above the tide line, smoke drifted over the shed behind a porched house surrounded by a garden. Another building was on the far end, probably a barn. Enchanted by the view, Miguel quickly captured the outlines in his sketchbook. As the vessel passed beyond the beach, a woman emerged from the house and waved. She wore a flowing dress with no crinolines, so the cloth accentuated her comely figure. Her dark hair was loose to her waist. Miguel couldn’t see her features, but he sensed her smile and waved back. He kept his eyes on her as the vessel passed the cove, spellbound as she swayed along the beach. He hadn’t seen a sight quite like this in Europe.

The Guares harbor was clogged and there would be no anchorage for them until morning. Miguel was rowed ashore, between and around the towering, pulsing hulls above the dinghy. Harried foremen cursed the ragtag workers who rolled, carried, and lifted the endless line of casks filled with molasses and crates with sugar bricks being loaded onto ships. With his white linen clothes, fine straw hat, and leather valise, Miguel was an incongruous sight on the pier aswarm with flies. The foremen and workers nodded or lifted their sombreros when he passed.

As he touched land in his native country, his throat swelled with emotion. During his months away, he’d often felt gusts of nostalgia.
Puerto Rico, amado mío, tierra donde nací
, he’d thought, feeling the passion of a separated lover yearning for his beloved. In countless rooms, over groaning tables, he’d embellished the wonders of his birthplace—the beauty of its countryside, its tranquil oceans, clear breezes, beautiful, clever women, and brave, dapper
caballeros
. He disregarded that slaves sustained Puerto Rico’s economy, and that his own wealth was dependent on their labor. As he looked around him now, he recalled that in the months he’d been away enjoying his intemperate adventures, men, women, and children were in bondage so that he could travel, paint uninspired landscapes, eat, drink, and whore. He was ashamed. His first instinct was to wonder when another ship was going back to the world where Puerto Rico was a mere speck on a map, unknown and forgotten by others. He wanted to be where Puerto Rico was what he wanted it to be: a source of pride for its children on other shores. In all the months he’d been gone it had been less painful to suffer homesickness than to see this reality and accept his part in it.

In the cities and towns he’d visited in Europe, Puerto Rico was a concept, an ideal, a place that lived in his imagination, not the actual debased humanity around him and his role in its degradation. I tried to free them, he told himself, but he well knew how feeble were his attempts. He now hoped that he’d learned more than dissipation in eighteen months. He remembered the men in don Benito’s
botica
, and Dr. Betances as an example of a man measured by his actions. As Miguel stepped on the precious soil—
amada tierra donde nací
—he swore to continue the struggle he had so easily abandoned, and with such cowardice.

There were more soldiers than he expected around the Guares port, their wary eyes darting from man to woman to man to child, rifles at the ready, index fingers crooked on triggers, and on their hips, incongruous swords and sabers. He remembered that soldiers came out in force whenever the local government was threatened by events outside the island. News had reached England that the Confederacy had collapsed in
el norte
, and that surrender was imminent. Slavery was a thing of the past in that vast country to the north, and Miguel had a moment of hope for the Antillean Confederation that Dr. Betances proposed. In Spain and France he’d met Puerto Ricans who continued to discuss, plan, and write about the same
concerns he’d shared in Benito’s drugstore and in the secret society. But as on the island, Miguel lurked along the fringes there, too, neither opposing independence and abolition nor entirely committing to them.

Beyond the pier, humans and beasts, their bodies glistening and emitting the sharp stench and sounds of exertion under the sun, congested the streets. Before he could avoid it, Miguel stepped into dung. Within seconds a boy appeared out of nowhere to wipe his cordovans.

He gripped Miguel’s coin in one filthy hand.
“Que Dios lo bendiga,”
he croaked, giving one last swipe to the shoes and disappearing into the throng before Miguel could ask him where to find don Tibó’s inn.

He walked more cautiously now, around the piles of manure, over the puddles formed by a recent rain shower, past the stacks of tiles from Sevilla on an unharnessed cart. He stepped gingerly around a sleeping dog, his ribs bulging along blistered skin, what was left of his hair matted and knotted.

Guares was a small city. The skeleton of a second wharf stretched, like the first, beyond the rocky shallows. Nearly every building along the shoreline seemed to be under construction. The work, postponed until after the
zafra
, gave the impression of a haphazard, unfinished town. Wooden buildings were framed but not closed in, their beams crossed in sharp angles against the dusky sky. Stone treads rose to untiled porches; iron rods sprouted over half-finished concrete walls like ferrous grass. Bright signs dangled over the sidewalks advertising a tailor, a milliner, two bars, a barber, a telegraph office, a hardware store, two
colmados
. A bank and an apothecary were open for business a few doors from a house with a discreet plaque:
JOHAN VAN ACKART, M.D., MAXIMUS DIEFENDORF, M.D
. That Guares could boast of two doctors was impressive. That the men had not Hispanicized their names meant they were recent arrivals.

Miguel stopped an urchin sitting on the curb.

“Can you tell me where to find don Tibó’s inn?”

“The cantina is over there.” The boy pointed listlessly in a direction that could have been ahead or to the left.

“May I help you, sir?” a voice came from behind.

The corpulent young man removed his hat with the air of someone
who recognized a specimen of the same breed. He was as well dressed and elegant as Miguel, except that he was taller, wider, and with the ingratiating air of a native facing a lost tourist.

“You’re very kind.” Miguel asked about don Tibó’s.

“I can guide you part of the way.” The young man stretched his hand out. “Manuel Morales Moreau, at your service, but everyone calls me Manolo.”

“How do you do. Miguel Argoso Larragoity.”

Manolo’s eyebrows rose. “Hacienda los Gemelos?”

“Yes.” He explained why there was no one to meet him and the captain’s suggestion.

“No, my friend, you can’t go to don Tibó’s. Out of the question,” he said. “Your uncle and late father, may they rest in peace, were great friends of my family. My father is Luis Morales Font, owner of San Bernabé, Los Gemelos’s closest neighbor. Your stepfather has been most attentive since Papá had his stroke. No, you’re absolutely forbidden from spending the night anywhere but in my home, where the food and accommodations will be superior to what our French
vecino
can provide.”

“I couldn’t possibly impose.…”

“It’s our pleasure, and you can make Angustias happy by sharing the latest from the Continent. Ladies place much stock on news from Europe, much more so than us men, whose concerns are more focused on local affairs.”

Miguel was somewhat embarrassed by Manolo’s ebullience, his familiarity, the way he tugged Miguel’s elbow to keep him from stepping on puddles of questionable origin.

“I’m not surprised you were lost. Guares is growing fast in every direction, thanks to King Sugar,” Manolo said. “Until the expansion of our port three years ago, we couldn’t accommodate the larger merchant and passenger vessels like the one that brought you back home.”

They entered a plaza where the church faced official buildings of stately construction decorated with impressive coats of arms and a very large Spanish flag. Commercial buildings lined the other two sides of the plaza, and Manolo explained that local landowners and businessmen were raising homes along the thoroughfares radiating from it toward the countryside.

The Moraleses’ street stretched for three blocks behind the government buildings. Beyond the newest homes, muddy alleys connected a warren of helter-skelter shacks and tumbledown barns. The squatters,
campesinos
, and
libertos
who’d settled on the sites before the town began to grow were being displaced to the outskirts, along the military road, in the swampy marshlands, or up the steep hills.

“These barrios are an eyesore,” Manolo said when he noticed Miguel’s interest. “The municipal government is doing everything possible to move them and make way for decent people.”

“Wealthy people, you mean,” Miguel said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The people in the barrios are poor. It’s their poverty that’s indecent,” Miguel said.

“Yes, of course.” Manolo coughed. “It’s terrible that they choose to live in such conditions. Ah, look—here we are.”

“Allow me to introduce you to my wife and her mother.” Manolo led Miguel into a parlor that might have been lifted and transported from a well-appointed home in Madrid. Two aggressively fashionable ladies stood to greet them, and at first, Miguel had trouble distinguishing between mother and daughter, because they looked about the same age. Their extravagant tiered skirts took up most of the floor space.

Doña Almudena and Angustias began to order the servants while Miguel and Manolo had a tall cool glass of
mamey
-water spiced with rum.

“I’m glad you didn’t try to get to Hacienda los Gemelos tonight. I didn’t want to say anything at first, but we’ve had disturbing news. Presidente Lincoln was assassinated ten days ago. We learned about it earlier today, and the
cabildo
has alerted everyone to be especially vigilant.”

“Now I understand why there are so many soldiers,” Miguel noted.

“You can’t be too careful. Betances and his ilk are likely to make a martyr out of Lincoln. The slaves already worship them both.”

Miguel nodded but said nothing. Another pang of guilt made him adjust the tightness of his cravat.

“Please, Manolo,” Angustias said, with an indulgent smile, “the authorities have the situation under control. Let’s enjoy our evening without such anxieties.” She turned to Miguel. “Mamá and I are beside ourselves with curiosity. Won’t you share some stories about your travels?”

Earlier that evening, at around the same time as Miguel was sketching the woman waving to him from the beach, Ana found her usual spot on the
balcón
to watch the sun go down. A strong wind rustled leaves and creaked branches, but an afternoon rain had emptied the sky. As the sun dropped into the sea, frogs chirped, toads croaked, insects buzzed, owls hooted. Thrilling life pressed its evening cacophony around her. Sparks whirled over the boiling-house chimney toward a shrouded, attenuated moon. Other than the lights around the mill, the valley was an expanse of impenetrable darkness. The landscape was black and flat as a tabletop, but from Ana’s perch at El Destino, with the forested mountains to the north and east, the valley appeared like the bottom of a dark bowl about to spill its contents into the Caribbean Sea.

“
Disculpe
, doña Ana.” Meri came to the
balcón
. “Shall we serve your dinner?”

“No, I’ll wait until my husband comes home.”

“That’s just it,
señora
. A boy came to let you know that
el patrón
is not coming. He sent this message.” Meri handed Ana a scrap torn from the ledgers where the foremen kept track of the laborers’ hours. It was folded several times, and inside, the writing was scribbled in a hurry.

“American president murdered. Guards will be out all night.”

Ana had to sit down.

“Is something wrong,
señora
?”

Ana shook her head, but her mind was racing. News traveled quickly through the barracks. Certainly, Lincoln’s assassination had probably reached El Destino’s workers before Severo’s message
reached her. Ana was suddenly aware that the vast house behind her was strangely empty.

“Where is everybody?”

“They’re all eating in the back,
señora
.”

Just then, an enormous tongue of flame rose into the sky over Finca San Bernabé. Ana jumped from her rocker and leaned over the railing as if to fly over it.

“What is it?” Meri instinctively reached to keep Ana from falling.

“Fire in San Bernabé.”