Raulito stared at the pretty dark-haired girl who ordered his big brother around. He followed Vicente and carried the canteen of grapefruit juice, and his brother carried the saddlebag filled with bread and nuts and apples and little candied fruit wrapped in brown paper that his sister told him she’d brought all the way from Ponce just for him. He’d helped her spread a cloth on the ground that she sat on, her legs in white stockings; he and Vicente sat on the grass. Raulito tucked his dirty, bare feet beneath him.
Utuado
January 13, 1890
Querida Elena,
Sister, how I miss you! If only we could talk in my bedroom as we used to do when we were girls. Elena, I have something to tell you that I cannot tell Vicente and I cannot possibly write in a letter. If only you were here or I there! If only you could give me your wise counsel! Elena! Elena! If only—!
How did you pass las Navidades? I wish we’d stayed in Ponce for the holidays. I missed las parrandas and dancing en la Plaza Las Delicias so much! Vicente took me to a neighbor’s house and we danced till dawn, but only the one night.
Kisses to our parents and to you and your family,
Besos y abrazos,
Valentina
P.S. Don’t give Mamá even a hint of what I’ve written. There is no need for her to worry.
P.P.S. I met Vicente’s half brother. He’s a darling negrito of almost ten. Mi suegro es un mujeriego.
Ponce
February 7, 1890
Dear Valentina,
How can I tell Mamá anything? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about! I’m imagining so many wild things! It’s frustrating to have to wait weeks for your letters. Why couldn’t you have stayed in Ponce? Maybe Juan Moscoso wouldn’t have been so bad after all! (Although your Vicente must be very good with his hands, being a farmer and all!)
You’ll be pleased to know that we have found someone embarking on a journey to Utuado who has promised to deliver your things.
Our parents send their love.
Muchos besos,
Elena
P.S. I can’t say that I’m shocked about Vicente having a half brother, considering what men are, but that he is a negrito! I won’t tell our parents.
Utuado
June 4, 1890
Dear Dalia,
Thank you so much for the wedding present—such a lovely pair of silver candlesticks! I keep them on my dressing table to admire them every night. And they came all the way from Spain! Pity me and describe your typical day! I promise not to envy you. Or, at least, not very much, because I am quite happy on the mountain with your cousin! Why did you never tell me about him? I forgive you because if he’d never come for your wedding or if you’d never invited me, then we’d never have met! How funny life is!
This morning, Vicente brought my coffee to me in bed despite his mother’s disapproval. (I fear that tu tía doesn’t like me. But Vicente reassures me that she will, in time!) I’m always busy here. Gloria (¿tú las conoces?) is training me in the art of housewifery. By the time we move into our own love nest, I’m sure to be an excellent ama de casa. Inés (you know Inés?) is teaching me mundillo. Claro, her lace is quite fine and worthy of one of your Parisian gowns, but she says that I’m improving.
Write me soon! It takes so long to get your letters. Of course it’s because mail must come by ship halfway across the world and up from San Juan to Utuado’s general store. (That part of the journey probably takes as long as the voyage due to the terrible roads!)
Regards from tu primo, and we send ours to your husband and to España!
Besos,
Valentina
P.S. When will you go to Paris?
Utuado
June 4, 1890
Querida Elena,
Vicente just brought me your letter. It was a lucky thing that his father sent him on an errand to town, otherwise it might have been several months before I received it. Unfortunately, that is where the mail is picked up and delivered. Everything is such a production here; so much effort is required for the littlest thing! How are you and the family? I thank you for your letters. It helps me to feel that I haven’t been forgotten by my family. Thank you for finding someone to bring my things, I can’t wait to get them. It’s been almost six months since we married! Sometimes it feels like a minute; sometimes, five years. Oh, don’t mind me. Tengo un poco de depresión. Gloria warns me to watch out because a city woman like me is prone to un ataque de nervios. Gloria is the servant I told you about. Sometimes I think that I’m the other one. Vicente’s mother, Doña Angelina (yes, I still call her doña), says that I’m learning to be a proper ama de casa, but some days I think that I’m in training to be a servant. Do I really need to learn how to make starch from scratch? Can’t I just buy it at the pharmacy like we did in Ponce? It seems that we can’t, because there is no pharmacy nearby, and people en el campo make everything themselves! Unfortunately, Vicente’s family isn’t wealthy like Dalia’s. (I don’t understand how that could be because they’re the same family!)
Elena, I’m sorry! I didn’t start this letter intending to worry you. It’s only that I was thinking of Dalia in Spain living mi sueño when Doña Angelina called me to help pick the bones out of the codfish we’re having for dinner. ¡Sí, bacalao! Don’t tell Papá. I wouldn’t want him to know how much of a jíbara his daughter has become. And it’s not that I’m really unhappy (or don’t like bacalao, because I do!), it’s just that while Utuado is very beautiful, it’s so far away from Ponce, from you, and our parents. Sometimes I feel so alone.
There is la doña again calling me to the kitchen. She probably wants me to help Gloria wash the pots. The other day, Vicente’s mother made me clean the—la doña is at the door! I must go!
Muchos, muchos besos,
Valentina
P.S. As to that other thing, I still can’t tell you in a letter! But I’m hoping that it will come to nothing.
P.P.S. I think I might be encinta! No one knows yet, not even Vicente. I know he’ll be glad, but it’s too soon!
CHAPTER TEN
RAULITO
When Raulito scavenged for food, he looked for edible roots for his mother to boil for soup. He threw stones at birds, even though he didn’t like to kill them. He picked fruit from trees that grew along the trails or about the mountain like mamey and quenepas and his favorite, jobo, which tasted deliciously of both pineapple and mango. He stole bananas and plantains from his father’s trees, careful not to get caught. Vicente told Raulito that his mother would give him rice and beans and eggs—they kept hens. But he never went because his mother Eusemia had forbidden him. A few times, he snuck onto his father’s land and dug out vegetables. Eusemia had warned him against taking anything from other farmers, but there were times when he disobeyed her and used the machete Vicente had given him to chop a few ears of corn from a field. Raulito was already experienced with a machete. As a special treat for his mother, he walked miles for cocos. One by one, he picked up the brown coconuts from the ground, shaking each and holding it to his ear, listening for sloshing liquid—no sloshing and it was fully ripe and the coconut meat would be ready to munch on or grind or boil in water to make coconut milk, a little liquid in the coconut and they could eat the meat with a spoon. It was a feat to climb a coconut palm for the green nuts filled with his mother’s favorite coconut water. He wrapped his arms against the rough bark, the soles of his bare feet gripping the trunk. He never worried that a coconut might bash his head in as he climbed, or that he might lose his grip and fall thirty-sixty feet. He thought only of the coconuts, of chopping the fronds and tossing the fruits on the ground until he had enough to fill a whole sack for his mother. She’d take them out one by one until there was a pile of coconuts in their bright green or brown shells at her feet. And then she’d give him one of her rare smiles, and he would smile back.