“I don’t know what kind of trampa you’re working here. The amount is incorrect, and where is my money?” Vicente rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for money.
The clerk said something to him and pointed to the plantation store, then to the cardboard in Vicente’s hand.
Vicente looked down at the piece of cardboard and then it came to him. “They’re paying us in scrip!”
“They’re paying us in scrip!” Eugenio looked over Vicente’s shoulder.
“¡Me siento como un pendejo bien cabrón!”
“Tranquilo, Vicente.” Eugenio put his hand on his compatriot’s arm.
•
Vicente considered the armed men. If he struck one of them, the other would surely shoot him, and then what would happen to Valentina and Lourdes and Sonia and Mirta? Anger warred with the injustice of finding himself at the mercy of the plantation, yet again at the mercy of Americans. ¡Coño carajo! His father would say I told you so.
“Mi nombre es Vega.” Vicente pointed to his chest. He said his name again to the plantation manager and the clerk, who didn’t understand and didn’t care, but at least he said it. Trabajo y tristeza, that’s what all the Puerto Ricans said life was in Hawaii. Work and tragedy.
That first Saturday afternoon in Hawaii, the Japanese walked through the Puerto Rican camp on their way to their communal baths. Everyone came out of their hovels to see the Japanese in various stages of undress, what they would refer to among themselves as “la desgracia.” Some puertorriqueños ran alongside them and shouted their objection to such immodesty.
“¡Que falta de respeto!”
“Put your clothes on!”
“¡No es decente! There are women and children here!”
A few of the Japanese men shouted back. Neither group knew the other’s language, but their anger needed no words.
Lourdes pointed to a Japanese man with only a cloth wrapped around his waist.
“How many times have I told you it’s not polite to point?” Valentina tapped her daughter’s shoulder.
Valentina envied the Japanese women, babies strapped on their backs, wearing light wrappers.
“Walking around half-naked.” Sonia shook her head. “That would never happen in Puerto Rico.”
“But we’re not in Puerto Rico,” Valentina said. “I wouldn’t mind walking around like that.”
Vicente turned to look at her. “Would you, now?”
Valentina smiled at him. “You would mind me walking around half-naked?”
“What are you saying, mujer? That you would walk around like a japonesa if I let you?” Vicente tried to give her a stern look.
“It’s probably a Japanese custom, but we could make it a Puerto Rican one.” Valentina put her arms around him.
“Maybe I need to be more firm with you, like my mother always said.” Vicente chucked her under her chin.
Valentina touched his chest. “I feel hot and sticky. Wouldn’t it be nice to bathe like the Japanese? Naked.”
“Let’s go swimming!” Lourdes and Mirta jumped up and down.
“We’ll find a private little spot.” Valentina gave him a sidelong look that she knew from experience he found hard to resist.
“Que locura,” Vicente said, but it was a weak protest. It was the first time since Javiercito died that Valentina had teased him. He would agree to anything.
“There is a little pond not far from here that I passed one day on the way to the cane,” Vicente said. “I don’t think anyone knows about it.”
They shed their clothes at the pond, everyone except Vicente, who kept his trousers on, embarrassed to be naked in front of the little girls and Sonia, a woman who wasn’t his wife. It wasn’t proper and it would put him in a terrible lío with Sonia’s husband. Vicente kept a little apart from the females as they swam and cavorted in the warm water. No one would ever have cause to blame him. Valentina noticed that Sonia, thin as she was, thin as they all were, had a slight belly. She suspected that her new friend was pregnant, but she would wait until Sonia told her, only then would she tell Vicente. When the children tired, Valentina sent them home.
“Sonia, take the children back, won’t you? Vicente and I will be right along,” Valentina said.
“Valentina, must I?” Sonia looked over at Vicente the way a woman shouldn’t look at another woman’s husband.
“Sí, mujer, start cooking and I’ll finish up. Then we’ll go to the party.” Valentina treaded water.
With one last look at Vicente, Sonia left with the children.
Valentina swam over to her husband and tugged at his pants.
“You’re shameless.” He lifted her out of the water.
“It’s the only way I can forget,” she said.
Vicente needed it, too.
There was a party set up outside the shacks over by one of the Portuguese ovens. Everyone was talking about the revolú caused by the indecent Japanese and what could be done about it. Somebody said that he would be the first one to punch a Japanese in the face next time he walked around naked in front of his wife and daughter. What kind of place was this Japan? Then somebody said, Let’s have some music! Where is that Hawaiian moonshine? What was it called? Okolehao. The women passed out food they’d brought while the jugs of okolehao made the rounds. Some of the women like Valentina took a swig. The musicians strummed guitars, others scraped güiros, and somebody shook el shekere, a calabash gourd covered in strings of beads. The children were sent to play while the adults danced. The okolehao made Valentina care only about music and dancing and her husband’s arms around her.
Somebody shouted, Look! Japanese!
A dozen Japanese men in kimonos walked up to the Portuguese oven. The musicians stopped playing, the singers stopped singing.
One of the Japanese men spoke, pointing to the musicians, and by his angry words and expression, the Puerto Ricans knew he was complaining about the music. They murmured among themselves, que nervio, wasn’t this the Puerto Rican camp, wasn’t it Saturday, the only night they could have a fiesta, wasn’t it bad enough to have lunas and blancos and police telling them what to do, now it was the Japanese.
Somebody said, Get the machetes!
“Vicente, do something!” Valentina tugged at her husband’s arm.
Vicente walked between the two groups of men. “Mi gente, tranquilos.”
Machetes . . . machetes . . . machetes . . .
He held out his hands. “Let’s try to settle it without bloodshed.”
Everyone watched as the two groups of men glared at each other. Finally, the Japanese men turned around and went home. The Puerto Ricans went back to their party. Play louder, they said to the musicians, and they danced until dawn.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
ON A DAY LIKE THIS
“Jiralue dem poro rico jana jana! Jiralue dem poro rico jana jana!” the luna shouted from the great height of his horse as he rode up and down the rows of sugarcane. He was a blur in the hard rain. Vicente reached for a cane stalk and chopped it with the machete; cutting cane was especially dangerous in this weather. Not only was it hard to see, but the machete could slip from a man’s hand and sever something important to him or his neighbor. The rain abated to a drizzle during the midday meal. Huddled together between the rows of chopped sugarcane, the men squatted and brought tins of food close to their mouths. In Puerto Rico, they could have brought their guitars and played after they ate, but here they only had their stories. One of the portorros told his.