“We’ll die in the cane fields,” Sonia said. “The rats will eat Mirta.”
Both little Mirta and Lourdes began to cry.
“Niñas, no need to cry,” Valentina said.
“Don Vicente, if you don’t open your heart, what will become of us?” Sonia knelt in front of Vicente. The little girls knelt down also.
“Everyone get up.” Valentina pulled Sonia to her feet.
“Valentina, you know it’s impossible,” Vicente said.
“That we are even here seems impossible,” Valentina said.
Vicente looked at the little girls’ tear-stained faces.
“Just for tonight.” Valentina put her arm around Sonia. “We can’t turn mother and child away.”
“Just for tonight,” Vicente said. Lourdes hugged him.
•
Sex always helped her forget—where she was, who she had been, who she had become. Whether the neighbors glimpsed them through the cracks in the wattle wall, whether Sonia closed her eyes or kept them open and watched them by the moonlight that silvered inside the hut, the lovers didn’t notice, certainly not Valentina. When it came to lovemaking, it went unspoken that it wasn’t proper to comment on it, not even by close friends and relatives; Sonia wouldn’t say anything the next morning. It was Valentina and her husband’s hovel, and she wasn’t even thirty years old, and if she wanted to make love, then coño carajo she would! And if their neighbors heard them, she didn’t care. She needed sex to fall asleep so she wouldn’t hear the rats hunt through the garbage beneath them; she needed sex to get up in the morning to face another day in this godforsaken place, this Hawaii. She had no proper house, no stove, no bed, no luxury of any kind. She was thousands of miles away from her family—she couldn’t even think of Javiercito, not yet—and she would be damned if she gave up sex!
Once when she was particularly loud, Vicente covered her mouth with his hand and it reminded her of another time long ago, when she had bitten the hand on her mouth and drawn the metallic taste of blood, and how its owner had let his hand slip from her mouth in surprise or, perhaps, pain.
Hilo, Hawaii
___Plantation
January 30, 1901
Dear Elena,
Our precious boy Javiercito was buried at sea somewhere in the cold Gulf of Mexico. One day he had a terrible fever—I can’t write more about this—only that he’s gone—my lovely boy—I try not to think of him—I wanted you to know, tell our parents only if you believe it necessary, but I see no reason to do so. I wish that you could have helped us to avoid this journey—did you not get my last letter?—but here we are on the other side of the world. The day begins with a siren to wake the dead and “Jiralue dem poro rico jana jana! Hana! Hana! Hana!” shouted at us by the plantation policemen. The siren tells us when to wake and when to sleep. It’s as if we were indentured servants at the beck and call of a feudal lord. We live in a hut of the meanest sort that is not even good enough for pigs. There isn’t a school for Lourdes, as we were promised. No one speaks Spanish here, and as we don’t speak English, you can imagine the difficulties. Somehow we lost Vicente’s brother Raulito on the voyage—he was sent to another plantation, we don’t know where—and Vicente is beyond worried. We don’t know what to do or who to ask for help finding him. We’ve taken in Sonia Fernández, a puertorriqueña, whose husband Pedro has also been misplaced. She has a daughter who is company for Lourdes. If somehow you hear of Sonia’s husband, please tell him where to find his family. ¡Ay bendito, Elena! I don’t know how or when this letter will reach you, or even if ever. (I have little paper and ink to write more.) I fear I will never see you or our parents again, but you are always in my heart.
Siempre,
Valentina
Hilo, Hawaii
___Plantation
January 30, 1901
Dear Raúl,
Our precious Javiercito died at sea. It is almost more than I can bear to think about. Vicente is taking it so hard that we don’t even speak of it. We lost Raulito somewhere. Please don’t tell Gloria, but say instead that we are well and that our life here is a dream. Raúl, maybe we should have listened to you and stayed in Puerto Rico because it’s not what we expected it to be. Your son and nieta te envían recuerdos. My love to mi querida Gloria.
Sinceramente,
Valentina
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
JIRALUE DEM PORO RICO JANA JANA!
The Puerto Ricans lived between the sirens of morning and night. That hideous shrill at eight each evening commanded them to sleep and shattered any illusions they might have had that they were in control of their lives. Where once they had woken to early lovemaking or the birds chirping and the rooster crowing or the soft patter of the morning rain on zinc roofs, now it was the blare of the siren reminding them that their bodies belonged to the plantation.
They were paid on Saturdays, when they worked a half day. Vicente collected his pay along with both Puerto Rican and Japanese workers. Men and women and also young boys and girls who worked the cane lined up outside the plantation manager’s office. When it was Vicente’s turn, a policeman checked his bango and only then was he allowed to enter the office and approach the desk where Mr. White, the plantation manager, sat with his clerk, an open ledger at his elbow, a pile of cardboard pieces in front of the clerk. The lunas and policemen stood guard behind him and his assistant.
Mr. White and the clerk compared Vicente’s bango number against the ledger. They had reassigned bango numbers that first week, four digits on a metal tag beginning with 9. Number 9 meant Puerto Ricans. The clerk wrote in Vicente’s notebook and on a piece of cardboard; he handed both to Vicente.
Vicente looked down at the notebook with his name incorrectly spelled and the piece of cardboard in his hand. The clerk had written an amount that was less than he’d expected, and it would be months before he would learn that he was taxed on his pay. Vicente was tempted to take a match to the cardboard. He and Valentina had calculated it one night. This first year he would earn fifteen dollars monthly for working ten hours daily for twenty-four days. They couldn’t believe that the total Vicente earned was sixty-two cents for a ten-hour day of cutting sugarcane. Sixty-two cents. In Puerto Rico, they’d thought, well, at least they would have a nice house and a good school for Lourdes and medical care when they needed it, but the housing was a shack and there wasn’t a school in sight and who knew about medical care? All this was on his mind, but how could he say this to people who didn’t understand him and were sure not to care even if they did?
Instead, Vicente pointed out to Mr. White the incorrect spelling on his notebook.
“My name is Vega, not Vegas,” Vicente said.
Neither the plantation manager nor the clerk spoke Spanish.
“I’m a man, not a number.” Vicente waved the cardboard under the clerk’s nose.
A policeman came up behind Vicente; one of the lunas stepped up to the table, hand on his gun. The clerk waved at Vicente to step aside and make way for Eugenio, husband of Dolores, who was next in line.
“Easy does it,” Mr. White said to the policeman. “We need these Porto Ricans.”
To Vicente, who didn’t speak English, it sounded like Mr. White told the policeman, You might have to shoot this porrican.