Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [119]
“Please don’t worry about me,” she said. “I don’t plan to marry while Miguel is so young.”
It didn’t take Miguel long to get used to life in San Juan. He was young enough to revel in the love and attention of his grandparents and Elena. They were strict but kind, especially Abuelo, whose whiskers bristled when he was angry, but who seldom raised his voice and didn’t spank him. Abuela took advantage of every opportunity to hug and kiss Miguel, to squeeze his hand or press his shoulder. He soon learned that Abuela’s need to touch was not confined to him.
When she was not knitting, embroidering, or sewing, she massaged Abuelo’s shoulders, or moved knickknacks around, or straightened Miguel’s vest, or tightened the sash that held Siña Ciriaca’s apron around her waist. Abuela wore curls that bounced around her face with every move and required constant tugging and pinning into place. Her black garments had ruffles, lace, and ribbons that she fussed with if there was nothing else nearby to occupy her fingers.
Miguel thought Abuela’s hands were nervous because they were so quiet when she played the harp. During the period of mourning, the instrument, covered with a linen cloth, took up a corner of the parlor for months before he knew what it was. It was like a huge headless ghost, and he avoided looking in its direction. Evenings after supper Abuela uncovered it, leaned her right shoulder into it, and prepared to make music. When she played, her whole body grew still, her eyes seemed to be looking at something far away, and her hands rested gently on the strings before she began plucking, as if she had to subdue the strings before she could strum them.
In Los Gemelos the only instruments Miguel had ever heard were the sticks José clicked to keep rhythm, or the dried gourds that Samuel scratched with a wire to make a raspy sound, or the maracas and rattlers that Inés and Flora shook, or the drums that Jacobo and Benicio fashioned from the hides of goats and cattle, then beat with their hands. Those instruments sounded very different from Abuela’s harp. She stroked its long strings gently or plucked them with her fingertips, eliciting a sweet sound. At Hacienda los Gemelos, José, Inés, Jacobo, and Benicio rubbed, scratched, or banged their instruments, and the sounds they produced made Miguel’s heart race. Abuela’s playing was soothing and brought to mind images of butterflies and wispy clouds. The music in Los Gemelos was fast, and when Flora and the other women sang, their voices rose up and down in throaty wails that gave Miguel goose bumps.
When they made music, everything around the barracks came to vibrant, unforgiving life. The women laughed and clapped, the men stomped their feet, and their bodies swayed, then jerked into dances that, even when the occasion was a solemn one, became a celebration of movement and sound. But when Abuela played, the world slowed and quieted as she rippled the strings. Abuelo and Elena’s faces, like Abuela’s, softened, and if Miguel moved or fidgeted, Abuelo scowled and Elena waggled her fingers to let him know to sit still. When Abuela played, Miguel wished that she’d bang on the strings. He wished that Elena and Abuelo would clap their hands, and that Siña Ciriaca and Nana Bombón would come from the kitchen thumping their pots with wooden spoons and that he could swirl and stamp his feet in the middle of the room the way he used to do in the batey, the drums beating through him into the night.
One Sunday after Mass, Elena walked Miguel up the hill to the fortified wall surrounding San Juan so that he could look at the sea. Soldiers tipped their plumed hats and bowed as Miguel and Elena passed. “Friends of don Eugenio’s,” she explained when Miguel looked at her inquiringly. He could tell that the soldiers admired how pretty she was in her brimmed hat and lace gloves and black dress with a satin black sash at her waist, but she paid no attention to them.
When they turned a corner, a gust slapped their faces, as if the houses kept the wind on the other side of the city. They crested the