House on the Lagoon (35 page)

“You mean Patria and Libertad are leaving the island?” I asked.

“Patria, Libertad, their husbands, the whole tribe,” Quintín said exultantly. “They’ve practically chartered the
Antilles,
the French passenger ship that sails from here to Vigo, all for themselves. Last week they came to the office and asked for a loan; they had to purchase ten tickets and they didn’t have enough cash. I lent them six thousand dollars, which of course I’ll never see again. But who cares! ‘When the enemy retreats, offer him a silver bridge,’ as Buenaventura used to say. Those six thousand dollars will probably be the best investment of my life.”

That afternoon we went together to the house on the lagoon. I hadn’t been there in over a year, and I was impressed by how different everything seemed. All of Rebecca’s gilded Louis XVI furniture had disappeared; Patria and Libertad were taking it with them to Spain. The piano, the Spanish Conquistador’s dining-room set Buenaventura had been so proud of, the wall tapestries, even the lamp in the entrance hall, which Buenaventura joked was an iron wheel that had been used to torture the Moors during the Spanish Conquest, were gone; Patria and Libertad had sold them.

The rooms were dirty and unkempt. Petra was still there; I could hear her in the pantry talking to Carmelina, her great-granddaughter; and Brambon was watering the plants in the garden. But the rest of the servants were nowhere to be seen. Later I discovered that when Ignacio had run out of money to pay them he had made them each a generous present—a goat, a cow, a hen—and told them they could leave. He gave away all of Buenaventura’s farm animals except his two dogs, Fausto and Mefistófeles, who were still in their pens, under Brambon’s care.

When we rang the bell, Patria herself opened the door. She was dressed for the trip, in a beige linen suit. She looked thinner but seemed in good spirits. She had one of her babies in her arms, and one of her little girls was following her around. She let Libertad know we had arrived, and the four of us were soon sitting out on the terrace, talking animatedly about a thousand things, as if nothing disagreeable had ever happened. Quintín was extremely solicitous of his sisters and asked them about their trip. He even offered to send on what they couldn’t take with them on the ship to their new address in Spain.

Patria explained that they were going to live in Madrid, where Juan and Calixto had many friends among the nobility. It wouldn’t be difficult for a count and a duke to find something to do there.

“They’ll be able to hunt and ride on their friends’ haciendas all they want, and we’ll be much better off ourselves. Servants get paid very little in Spain, and one can have as many as one needs,” she said. “And, of course, rents are much lower than over here. By the way, we’re grateful you bought our part of the house from us—the money will be useful to help us get settled.”

I was startled by her comments. It was the first time I had heard about Quintín’s purchase of the house on the lagoon; he hadn’t mentioned it to me. But I pretended to know all about it.

Quintín offered suggestions as to what his sisters should do when they arrived in Spain—visit the American ambassador, make sure they didn’t forfeit their passports, remember to reenter the United States every six years so they wouldn’t lose their American citizenship. I kept looking to see if Ignacio was around, but I couldn’t find him. Finally I got up the courage to ask about him. What was he going to do? Was he going to stay here alone? Had he sold his part of the house, too?

“Ignacio?” Libertad burst out angrily. “I couldn’t care less what he does. We wouldn’t have to leave the island and go live in Spain if Mendizabal & Company hadn’t gone bankrupt. It’s all his fault!”

Libertad took out her handkerchief and began to cry, and Quintín tried to calm her down. She mustn’t take things so hard, he said. He was sure their move to Madrid was only temporary and that someday they’d be able to return home. The sisters still owned some real estate on the island—two apartment buildings that had belonged to Rebecca, which Quintín had managed to save from the catastrophe. Ignacio had mortgaged them to keep Mendizabal & Company afloat a few months longer, and Quintín paid back the loan. He would manage the buildings and send on to Spain the rent he collected.

Juan and Calixto soon walked out onto the terrace, leading the older children by the hand. Brambon came behind them, loaded down with suitcases, and Eulodia and Petra brought the rest of the luggage. Juan and Calixto shook Quintín’s hand and kissed me affectionately on both cheeks. But they didn’t sit down to talk with us. The taxicabs had just arrived and were waiting on the avenue to take them to the wharf.

We walked down the hall to the front of the house and milled around the cars, kissing and embracing and shaking hands once again. Patria and Libertad were about to get into the taxis when Ignacio suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, under the granite arch of the entrance. When I saw him, I was amazed; he had lost at least twenty pounds, and his hair was gray. He looked twenty years older than Quintín. He kissed his sisters goodbye and gave each a going-away present: two beautiful watercolors of the house on the lagoon. Patria looked anxious. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked him. “I’ll be all right,” Ignacio said. “You mustn’t worry about me.” Patria hugged Ignacio, but Libertad took the watercolor without thanking him. Then they all got into the taxis and drove away. Ignacio stood there smiling and waving goodbye as if nothing extraordinary had happened. It was the last time I saw him alive, and every time I think of him, I remember him that way.

When we returned to our apartment, I felt so bad I had to go to our room and lie down. Quintín followed me and sat next to me on the bed. I begged him to explain what had happened. Why was Mendizabal & Company bankrupt? Why did Ignacio look ill? If I remembered rightly, Quintín had said he had left enough commercial lines open in Europe for his brother and sisters to live on. He hadn’t taken over all of Mendizabal’s accounts during his lightning trip through Europe. Or had he?

I could tell Quintín was angry; he didn’t think I should have brought up the subject at all. It was very simple and he’d try to explain it to me again, he said slowly, although I couldn’t remember when he had explained it the first time. Ignacio didn’t know anything about business. He thought that merely by sitting at the office doodling he was going to get things sold, and when they didn’t sell, his European partners began to cancel their contracts; in a year the business had gone down the drain. Quintín had a clear conscience; he had tried to help Patria and Libertad as much as he could—they were empty-headed but they were his sisters. But Ignacio was another matter. He was a man; he had to learn to be responsible for himself.

I looked at Quintín skeptically and kept silent; I didn’t want to provoke him any further. But I couldn’t believe what he had said.

What I had seen and heard that day made such a deep impression on me that I began to have severe contractions. I was seven months pregnant and the thought of a miscarriage terrified me. It had taken me five years to get pregnant and I wanted very badly to have the baby. Quintín was worried and he took me to the hospital, where I was given a sedative that knocked me out. When I woke up, the contractions had stopped, but the doctor ordered me to stay in bed for the duration of the pregnancy. I was supposed to sleep as much as I could, and the doctor prescribed small doses of Librium that would calm me down.

Quintín was in a very good mood and catered to my every whim. I had a nurse at my side twenty-four hours a day, and Quintín always came home early from the office. The Mendizabal clan had finally disappeared and he only had to answer for me and his future child. Our two worlds, the Mendizabal and the Monfort, would finally merge into one.

For two months I lived in a mist. Ignacio began to recede from my mind; it was almost as if he had never existed. I suppose I wanted to forget about him, and it was easy. He had always been so sweet and obliging; I wanted him to go away and he had done so like a polite ghost. I had lost count of how many days had gone by when I finally gave birth to Manuel on July 14, 1961. When I came out of the hospital and Quintín took me home, he told me Ignacio was dead. He had shot himself two weeks before.

The news shocked me. I wanted to know more, but Quintín refused to discuss it. It wasn’t wise to talk about unhappy things now, he said sternly. I had to think about our baby and about the kind of life we would lead from now on. We had to be grateful the family nightmare was finally over. I had no alternative but to be silent.

A week later I told the nurse there was an errand I had to run in the afternoon, and I left the baby with her. I wanted to talk to Petra; I was certain she’d be able to tell me the real story. I drove to the house on the lagoon and found the door open. The house was in an even worse state than when I had visited it some months before, the day Patria and Libertad left for Spain. The windows had been left open; the rain had warped the parquet in the living room, and there were crabs scuttling about on the damp floor. I went down to the cellar and found Petra there, sitting in her old wicker chair. She was as massive and enigmatic as ever, with her beaded necklaces wound around her neck. She was peeling a manioc root, and it was difficult to distinguish her dark, gnarled hands from the tuber’s knobby surface. I pulled up a stool next to her and she set the manioc root down with the knife on a table. For the first few minutes I didn’t say anything but just sat there in silence. Finally I sighed and put my head on her lap. Petra didn’t say anything, either. She stroked my hair softly.

I was tired, confused. Finally I said, “I want to know why Ignacio killed himself and why Mendizabal & Company went bankrupt. Quintín wouldn’t talk about it, but it’s important. Quintín and I just had a son. If I can understand why Ignacio killed himself, perhaps I can prevent the Mendizabals’ violent nature from taking root in my child.”

“Buenaventura has a grandson? That’s wonderful news!” Petra said softly, as if she hadn’t heard my question. “You should be happy and follow Quintín’s advice.”

I sat up and looked her straight in the eye. “Don’t try to protect Quintín, Petra. Living with a secret like that would be like living with a time bomb. I want to know the truth.”

Petra closed her eyes and lowered her head. “All I can tell you,” she said, “is that one day Quintín came to the house and they locked themselves up in Ignacio’s room to talk. I could hear what they were saying. An empty house is like a seashell; even whispers can be heard through its walls.”

“Why don’t you sell me your part of the house, like Patria and Libertad did?” Quintín asked Ignacio. “The money could tide you over for a while. You could rent an apartment in Old San Juan until you figure out what to do.” But Ignacio didn’t want to sell. He didn’t want to move out of the house. He was born here and had never lived anywhere else, he said. Instead, he asked Quintín for a loan—five hundred dollars, I think it was—until he could find a job. But Quintín wouldn’t give him the money. He was convinced Ignacio wasn’t really looking for work; he wanted to go on doing nothing and living comfortably at the house on the lagoon.

“When Quintín left,” Petra continued softly, “Ignacio locked the door to his room and refused to come out. I could imagine how he felt, but there was nothing I could do. Ignacio was so sensitive about everything, he was terrified that his father’s friends might recognize him and ask about Mendizabal’s bankruptcy. He didn’t even dare cross the street to buy cigarettes; he sent me, instead. Eventually, the electricity in the house was cut off for lack of payment, and we had to use candles at night. Then the water was shut off. But we still had Buenaventura’s spring, and Ignacio could take a bath in it. I went there every day with large kettles to bring drinking water up to the house. Ignacio had no money to buy food, but my relatives came to visit me periodically in their rowboats, and I would prepare Ignacio soups and stews with the vegetables and tubers they brought over from Las Minas, and every once in a while a large crab.

“Finally, one day Ignacio simply couldn’t stand the shame anymore. He asked me to wash and iron his white linen suit; he went to Brambon and begged him to cut his hair and shave him; and he took a long bath in Buenaventura’s spring. Then he got dressed and lay down on the bed. The last thing he did before pulling the trigger of the gun on the left side of his chest was to take out his handkerchief and carefully clean his gold-rimmed glasses, so that they would shine like polished wafers on his nose.”

Petra finished her story, which she had told in a perfectly controlled voice. There were no tears, no sobs, no recriminations of any sort. I hadn’t realized how loyal she was to Quintín until then.

“I think Quintín was heartless,” I said. “Ignacio must have been in hell. But you still haven’t answered my question, Petra. Was Ignacio’s suicide Quintín’s fault? Did Quintín go to Europe just to open new commercial lines for Gourmet Imports, as he told me, or did he go to Switzerland, where there were three million dollars in cash in Buenaventura’s bank account? Maybe he
did
know the secret number of the account, after all!”

Petra sat there silent as the Sphinx. She didn’t admit anything, but she didn’t deny my accusations. “There are secrets in the Mendizabal family you know nothing about, my child,” she said softly, shaking her head. “But I’m not the one to tell you about them.”

I wiped my tears and shuddered. If what I suspected was true, Quintín was a scoundrel and I should leave him. But what was I to do without money and with a newborn child? The only thing I could do was to wait. In time, Quintín’s innocence or guilt would be revealed to me.

Q
UINTÍN TOLD ISABEL IN
no uncertain terms that they had to get rid of Petra. She was over ninety, too old to do any work around the house. She could have an accident at any moment and they would be responsible for her. It was best if her relatives took care of her in Las Minas. He’d be willing to pay her a generous pension; she wouldn’t want for anything.