“Do you really think striking together will do any good, Vicente?”
“We have to try,” Vicente said. “Pa’lante.”
“Pa’lante.” Valentina put her arms around his waist.
“Siguemos la lucha, pa’lante as we say. We keep going forward as we always have, am I right?” Vicente looked at his wife, still as pretty as the girl he’d met in Ponce.
The siren blared a warning.
“We’d better run.” Valentina moved away.
“No.”
“But the police—”
He took her hand. “We walk.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
DREAMS
Lourdes and Mirta played hide-and-seek among the trees, their giggles rising to greet the moon. It was Saturday night, and the Puerto Ricans could stay up as long as they wanted without dreading the blare of the siren and the nightsticks of the police. They could choose to wake on Sunday when they pleased, just like in Puerto Rico—though that now seemed like a dream from long ago.
The strains of a ukulele came from the Japanese camp.
After a few minutes, Valentina said, “It’s a strange sound, isn’t it?”
“Nothing like the cuatro,” Vicente said, smiling.
“But still nice,” she said.
They called the girls and walked to the pond. It was their special place because it was their place—a little too far from the Puerto Rican camp, where there were streams closer by, and the Japanese had their own communal baths and their own favorite streams and rivers. Music and laughter were coming from the direction of the hut belonging to Dolores and Eugenio, whose turn it was to host the party. They’d join their friends later.
He remembered how on a night like this in Puerto Rico, on another island half a world away, he’d been talking to the bride, his cousin, and there she’d been, Valentina.
Now, they leaned against the trunk of a palm tree.
“I’ll grow coffee again,” Vicente said. “One day I’ll have my own coffee farm again.”
Vicente recalled the last time he had gone to his farm, how he’d sat on a tree stump taking in what once had been and was no more, how he’d promised himself that he’d return to his mountain and plant more trees and build another house for Valentina. His children would grow up on the mountain with Raulito’s children and their children’s children. Back then, he’d thought that would be possible.
Lourdes began to teach Mirta a song Valentina liked to sing to her when she was younger. “A la rorro niña, a la rorro ya, duérmase mi niña, duérmaseme ya—”
Valentina joined in. “Que los angelitos tu sueños velarán.”
She covered her eyes with her hand. “Esa canción de cuna—”
“Querida.” Vicente put his arm around her.
“Why do you think it happened to us? Twice?” Valentina leaned her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Vicente and Valentina settled on the ground, their backs against the tree trunk. They listened to their girls sing. He drew her into his lap, he reached under her dress.
Valentina protested, “The children—”
He removed his hand.
Valentina’s hair brushed his cheek. “Vicente, what if we’re cursed?”
“Querida, we’re not cursed, we’re blessed.”
“You think so?” She wasn’t sure.
Valentina rubbed her stomach. She wasn’t ready to tell him. Not yet. Vicente would be so happy. He’d wanted another baby. And she thought she did, too, but she couldn’t forget the ones she’d lost. The months after Evita died—and then Javiercito—she wasn’t yet able to think about Javiercito, she had to be strong for Lourdes. And now there was Mirta, who needed her, too.
Valentina recalled one night in the little wood house Vicente had built—when los tiznados had surprised them. She had huddled with the sleeping children as she listened to Vicente shooting at the bandits, defending their home, their family. She’d bitten back her screams. But he’d come back to her and he’d taken her to bed. They’d made love, and afterward, she’d fallen asleep.
“Seguir la lucha,” Vicente said. “That’s all we can do.”
“Pa’lante,” Valentina said.
They listened to the little girls sing.
THE END