The misunderstanding arose because Raulito was always the first to ask one particular girl to dance, the sister of one of the other sugarcane workers, a certain Estrella Vázquez. Raulito thought Estrella deserved her name because her dark brown eyes shone like stars. Estrella was a nice girl, and any man would want her for his mujer, any man except for him. Estrella was a good dancer and she liked to dance. Raulito was a good dancer and he liked to dance. He didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to think, and was as close to happy as he had ever been. Soon, Raulito danced only with Estrella and she danced only with him, and now everyone wanted them to get married.
“You and Estrella are so sweet together.” Soraida served him rice and beans.
“She’s a good dancer.” Raulito tried to find his escape in the plate of food.
“That’s an indicator that she’ll be good in bed. Isn’t that so, Soraida?” Carlito cupped his wife’s behind.
“¡Hombre, for shame!” Soraida spooned beans onto her husband’s plate, but she didn’t shake his hand from her behind.
It used to make Raulito squirm to see them touch each other, because he didn’t know where to look, but now he didn’t even notice.
“Somos amigos,” Raulito said to the rice and beans.
“That’s not what Estrella thinks,” Soraida said.
Girls have to marry young, especially the pretty ones, that’s what everyone said. Raulito was relieved when, a few weeks later, Estrella married someone else. He ate lechón and rice and drank ron caña at the wedding party, which would keep Estrella’s new husband in debt for months to the plantation store.
Soraida handed him a plate of roasted pork and arroz con gandules. “Your face would break a mother’s heart.”
Raulito didn’t know why he was so sad, perhaps because he’d lost his dancing partner or because he didn’t have anyone to love. But that was the moment he decided the time had come to leave the plantation and find his brother Vicente. People would say he left because he was brokenhearted over Estrella. Let them say that. It would be a relief if they said that.
From then on, his decision to leave made him rash, and although it wasn’t allowed, he stood up straight in the cane field, looking up at the blue cloudless sky. In Puerto Rico, he would lie on the grass, gaze up at the sun, and dare it to make him blink.
The luna rode over on his horse. “Hey, 9562, hana, hana!”
The luna never called the Puerto Ricans by their given names, always their bango numbers or “porrican.” They called the luna “el Cochino Gordo” because he was fat and they were skin and bones, because he was Portuguese, because they envied his horse, because he was cruel.
“¡No más caña!” Raulito waved his machete. He watched the luna ride away, and for the first time in his year in the Hawaiian sugarcane, he wasn’t afraid.
“Stupid, you don’t tell el Cochino Gordo no more sugarcane!” Carlito ran over to him.
“I’m going to find my brother.” Raulito squatted between the rows, thinking no one would find him that way.
“Idiot, you need time to make a plan.” Carlito stood over him.
The luna and a plantation policeman galloped on their horses toward them, and Carlito went back to cutting cane.
“Hey, porrican!”
Raulito got up.
“You cane or you cárcere?” The luna raised his whip, ready to strike.
Carlito was right; he needed a plan.
“He a dumb one,” the luna said.
“I scare him a little.” The policeman pointed his rifle.
“Porrican one of best workers,” the luna said. “Hana, hana, porrican!”
The whip struck Raulito’s shoulder. He turned his back for the second blow, and then raised his machete to the cane.
Carlito advised him to wait until he heard from Vicente before running off to who knew where. Be smart, muchacho, be smart, but Raulito thought he’d been smart for a year and he was still alone.
The Puerto Ricans were on their way back after a day in the cane, when Carlito’s little boy ran up to them.
“Raulito, Raulito! Your brother is in a letter!”
“My brother’s in a letter?”
No longer bent over like a viejito, Raulito raced the boy back to his small hut.
“It’s from my sister.” Soraida waved the letter. “She lives on the Big Island of Hawaii.”
Raulito shut his eyes tight. A day in the cane fields worse than the day before, and now no letter from his brother.
“There’s something about your sister-in-law in it.”
When he opened his eyes, Soraida was the most beautiful woman in the world, even prettier than Valentina. She could read because she had come from a coffee-growing family that had once had a teacher living with them for months.
“Want me to read it for you?” Soraida often read and wrote letters for the Puerto Ricans who couldn’t.
“I can read,” Raulito said.
“You can?” Carlito asked. “I can’t.”
“Why didn’t you say that your sister-in-law was a madrona?”
“Valentina?”
Soraida handed him the letter, although he was sure that the Valentina he knew would never ever be a midwife.
There’s a madrona here called Valentina Sánchez, the wife of a certain Vicente Vega from Utuado, who delivered this last one of mine, but Dios mío, I pray no más bebés because it is hard enough to feed the four I have now. Valentina says that she can make me a special concoction of plants and herbs so that this one is my last. She has only the one child so she must have a secret potion.
“Is that Valentina your sister-in-law?” Soraida reached for the letter.
“It seems so.” Raulito’s hand trembled. “But I can’t see Valentina as a midwife.”
“Will you ask her to send me her recipe for no more babies?”
“¿A receta para no más bebés? No entiendo,” Raulito said.
“But she will.” Soraida took back the letter. “Don’t forget, it’s important.”
They sat on the bench that also served as a bed for one of the younger children.
“They’ll never give you permission to work on another plantation.” Carlito went to get the bottle of anisette that Soraida had made from aniseed.
“Carlito, it’s not even the weekend,” Soraida said.
“It’s a special occasion, mujer,” Carlito set the bottle and two glasses on the table.
“You’re not drinking?” Soraida picked up a glass.
Carlito went to get another.
“My sister says that the workers there can leave their plantation when they want,” Soraida said.
“But that’s not this one.” Carlito poured the anisette into three glasses.
“I’m leaving anyway.” Raulito took a sip from the glass. He liked the sweet, smoky taste.
“How will you eat?” Soraida served her husband his dinner.
“I’ll manage somehow.”
“When you get caught—and you will—make up a different name for yourself and tell them that you come from your brother’s plantation.” Carlito drank the anisette. “Maybe they’ll send you there.”