Lourdes. His. Not. His.
Only after Valentina confessed everything, if there was something to confess, would he decide what to do. No one would blame him, whatever he did. Not even his wife.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
HOE HANA
Hoe hana. Hoe hoe hoe, weed weed weed for four hours in a straight line, no talking. Bent over at the waist, Valentina dug at the red clay earth to prepare it for the planting of sugarcane. Although women and children earned less than half of what men earned, hoe hana was the hardest work Valentina had done in her whole life.
Up with the 5 a.m. blare of the siren to pull on pants that had once belonged to Vicente’s father and that she had taken for Raulito. Valentina left the sleeping girls in Sonia’s care. The Japanese women wore white scarves that they pulled over the hats. Valentina took to tying a scarf around her straw hat like the Japanese women. Las japonesas sang songs of mourning while they worked, some of them crying. She brushed something from her cheek, surprised that her hand was wet.
Whenever Valentina stood up straight to ease the pain in her back, the luna charged up on his horse and shouted down at her. Hoe hana! Hoe hana! Only when it was necessary to sharpen the blade of the hoe on a stone with hands that trembled from effort and fatigue, only then could she stop hoe hana. Boys younger than Javiercito carried bundles of cane stalks on their backs like miniature mules. The youngest girl was eight years old, only a couple of years older than her own Lourdes. Hoe hana would crook the girl’s spine like a tree branch. Some of the Japanese women who worked alongside her had warped spines. She dragged herself home feeling like someone had beaten and kicked her all over.
Valentina was the only puertorriqueña. When the others sat on their hoes while they ate lunch, she did the same. The Japanese brought their food in delicate lacquered boxes. She’d once kept hairpins and ribbons in a lacquered box that was lost in the hurricane. One of the Japanese women returned Valentina’s stare. Valentina looked away, hoping she wasn’t offended.
The first time Valentina had to put food on credit at the plantation store, she told herself that it wasn’t her fault. Because she was a woman, she earned twenty-five cents a day to Vicente’s sixty-two cents. (Girls earned twelve cents a day.) She bought bacalao, beans, and powdered milk for las niñas and a piece of liver for Sonia because she was pregnant and needed iron. (Although Sonia still hadn’t confessed that she was encinta.) One day when Valentina didn’t bring lunch because it was hard to feed four people on hoe hana wages, a Japanese woman offered to share her meal. Although Valentina felt faint from working under the hot sun, she tried to refuse, shaking her head, saying, no, gracias, señora.
The Japanese woman bowed again.
“Valentina.” She pointed to her chest.
“Valentina.” La japonesa bowed. “Mikioki.” La japonesa pointed to her chest and bowed.
“Mikioki.” Valentina bowed.
“Ono! Ono!” Mikioki pointed to the rice ball.
She didn’t want to eat it but she was so hungry and she didn’t want to be impolite. Valentina ate the rice formed into a ball with a surprise in the center of raw fish and a red pickled plum.
“Hmmmm, delicioso.” Valentina smiled.
“Hmmmm, ono! Ono!” Mikioki smiled.
The women bowed to each other.
After that, Valentina always brought something to eat. The next payday, she put enough bacalao on credit to make extra for Mikioki. She sent the little girls to pick tí leaves, which she had seen the Japanese women use, and she wrapped the bacalao and rice in tí leaves instead of the banana leaves she would have used in Puerto Rico. Mikioki ate it and said, Ono! Valentina learned that ono meant tasty.
When Valentina stumbled home, exhausted after hoe hana, she knew that she looked as ragged as the other field workers. There was nothing left of the old prideful Valentina. Her shoes were dusty with red dirt. Her friends and neighbors teased her because she wore her father-in-law’s pants. She wasted no time thinking of Raúl Vega, but she thought about Vicente, worried about him. When would he return? Would he return? She hoped that los americanos hadn’t done something terrible to him. With Vicente gone, it was like she was having a one-person conversation: she asked and answered all the questions, told and listened to all the stories, described problems, proposing what to do or lamenting that nothing could be done. She missed talking to him. Most of all, she missed that he looked at her as if she were still the strawberry girl from Ponce.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
HOME
His body didn’t feel as if it belonged to him, his arms and legs seemed to move of their own volition, his hand rose to shade his face from the sun, something that he’d not been allowed to do on the chain gang. The police had brought him back to the plantation. For the first time in months, Vicente walked without a gun pointed at his back, and it gave him the sensation of freedom.
Vicente wished that he’d been allowed to wash. He had stone dust on his skin and under his fingernails. He was ashamed to have people see him filthy like any beggar. He hurried down the dirt road, eager to see the little girls and his wife. He thought of the great big kiss they’d share and how Valentina would linger in his embrace, not caring that he hadn’t showered in two months.
“¡Valentina!” He ran the last few yards to their hut, calling out her name.
“¡Papi!” The little girls ran to him.
Vicente lifted them up, one in each arm; their joyous giggles eased some of the pain of what he’d endured. But Valentina, where was Valentina?
“Papi, you stink.” Lourdes held her nose.
“You stink.” Mirta held her nose, too.
“Oh, I do, do I?” Vicente planted a loud kiss on each little girl’s forehead, making them squeal.
“Where is your mother?” Vicente said to his daughter.
“Hoe hana.” Lourdes pointed down the road.
“Hoe hana?” His Valentina hoe hana?
“Mami is here.” Mirta pointed in the other direction.
He set the girls down and took one last look down the road, but no Valentina. They went to find Sonia, who was stirring a pot of beans in the Portuguese oven.
“Ay bendito, Vicente, it’s wonderful to have you home.” She hugged him. “You stink! Hombre, you need a bath!”
The little girls watched for Valentina; when they saw her, they ran toward her calling out the news.
“¡Papi is home!” They hugged her waist, taking her lunch pail and hoe, arguing as to who would carry what, telling her that he was real dirty but it was really Papi.
Vicente was back! She took off her hat and scarf and her hands trembled as she tidied up her hair. Vicente was back! If only she’d had some warning, if only she’d had time to bathe. That he should see her like this, her shirt sweat-stained, her hands dirty, and her nails cracked from hoeing weeds, that he should see her in these pants filthy with red dirt. She spit on the back of her hand and wiped her face, leaving a streak of red on her cheek.
Valentina wanted to throw her arms around him and cover his face with kisses, but he looked at her as if he didn’t know her, as if she’d never been his strawberry girl. She thought it was because he was ashamed that she was dirty, that she worked in the cane. She didn’t kiss him.