Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [106]
“This place meant more to Ramón than a town he seldom visited,” she said, wiping away tears. “I’d prefer it if you’d consecrate the ground, because when my time comes, I, too, wish to be buried here.”
Severo picked a spot on a knoll for Ramón and had men build a stone fence around it for a burial ground. Even Leonor and Eugenio agreed that it was a peaceful site, shaded by an ancient ceiba tree. Ramón was interred at the highest point, the cañaveral an enormous rippling carpet below. After the funeral, the rancho was rearranged, under Severo’s direction, into an open dining room where a meal was served to the mourners before they returned to their plantations. The novenas were also conducted in the rancho, but the visitors dwindled over the nine days, so by the end, only the family, the slaves, and a few campesinos recited the prayers that Ana, Leonor, and Elena took turns leading.
Ana tried to make the Argosos feel welcome, even though Ramón had announced they were coming after they were already halfway to Los Gemelos. She’d have preferred to house them at the finca, which would have given everyone more privacy. But Ramón insisted that the finca was too far from the house.
Leonor had brought a slave with her from San Bernabé, a loan, she said, from Faustina. Ciriaca slept in a hammock in Miguel’s room, now Elena’s, and waited on the two women with refined solicitude and surprising devotion. Ciriaca and Elena walked doña Leonor to Ramón’s grave every morning and afternoon to pray. Leonor gave Ana hateful looks when she wouldn’t go with them.
Flora was jealous of Ciriaca. “She orders me and Inés like she the mistress.”
Damita, too, said that Ciriaca’s polished manners and commanding airs had the slaves gossiping and complaining. The smooth functioning of her household, which Ana worked so hard to achieve and maintain, evolved within days into resentful infighting among her servants.
Even though she was in mourning, Ana wouldn’t neglect her chores. Every time she went by Leonor, Ana saw her disapproving eyes, because she should be sitting in a corner, like Leonor and Elena, praying and reading devotional texts. Eugenio was in the campo with Severo from dawn to dusk. His wife didn’t make him sit with her and pray all day. Even in his grief he could work, but she couldn’t because she was a woman and could express her grief only by suspending her life. She spent most of her day in the gardens, brooding about her future.
One afternoon, Leonor and Elena walked Miguel to the river for a picnic. Ana was working on the ledgers when she heard Eugenio coming up the outside stairs.
“Ah! There you are. No picnic for you?”
“No, don Eugenio. It’s the end of the month, and I must go over the accounts and prepare the pay packets for the overseers and the paid laborers.”
“Perhaps I can help?”
“I’m almost finished, but if you’d like to review what I’ve done—”
Eugenio sat beside her as she explained each item, each expense, every purchase and sale over almost five years at Los Gemelos. He leaned back as if the blue, green, and red lines across the pages made him dizzy. He wasn’t for credits and debits but had spent enough time on the plantation to know that it was better run than he’d expected.
“It all looks very good,” he said, nodding.
“Another couple of years of good harvests”—Ana closed the books and stacked them by her side—“and Los Gemelos will be self-sufficient. Within another two to five years we’ll be making a profit.”
“It’s tragic that neither of my boys lived long enough to see it.”
“Yes.” She lowered her head, but from the corner of her eye she saw him looking around, as if taking inventory of the house and its belongings. “That’s why,” she said softly, “I’d like to continue the work here, don Eugenio. In their memory.”
“Surely, Ana, you know that’s impossible. You, alone here? No, my dear, I appreciate your sentiments, but … No, I couldn’t possibly allow it.”
Her bile rose. He,