Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [155]
After so many, she couldn’t let this child she hardly knew die. She rode across the paths where towering cane eradicated the horizon and didn’t cross herself when she passed Ramón’s grave. Too many deaths, as she rode beyond the slaves’ cemetery. I didn’t save them, but this one—she will not die.
Ana treated Meri with raw potato poultices, honey, palmarosa and helichrysum unguent, and the soothing aloe gel. She was seriously burned along her neck and left arm, on her chest and foot. No matter how tender Ana’s ministrations, Meri squealed when she was touched, even in places where the hot grease hadn’t reached. After her throat swelled from crying, she continued to emit gut-wrenching sounds that made the hair along the back of Ana’s neck stand on end.
She was sitting by Meri’s pallet, forcing sweetened tisanes through her lips, when Severo appeared. “You’ve been at her side for three days straight. Let Conciencia watch her for a while.”
“If I leave her she will die.”
“What difference does it make? If she survives she’ll be crippled.”
She checked the dressing above Meri’s elbow. “She might be.”
He watched her for a few moments. “Why are you all of a sudden taking such interest in a useless child?”
“She’s not useless!” She looked up fast enough to notice him flinch. “Not a single one of them is useless. You have surely noticed that nothing can be done around here without them.”
He stepped closer but didn’t try to touch her. “Don’t talk to me like that, Ana.”
He was like ice, and for a moment, he scared her. She gathered her wits and stood up, which forced him to step back.
“I’m sorry to have raised my voice,” she said. He acknowledged her apology with a nod. “When she recovers I’ll put her to work in the sewing room.”
“You don’t need to reward her,” he said, “for surviving.”
Meri whimpered. Ana returned to the stool by her side, dropped more liquid into the girl’s mouth. When she looked up again, Severo was peering at her like a guaraguao at a pitirre.
“Buenas noches, then.” He inclined his head again, eyes dark as a forest. He turned toward the door but stopped. “You might save her,” he said before he left. “But don’t believe that after all you’ve done she will be grateful.”
After ten days of constant attention and care, Ana was confident that Meri would live, even if her arm, shoulder, and chest would be permanently scarred. She had the worst injuries but wasn’t the only patient in the infirmary. Every day someone was brought in with cuts, bruises, sprains, or infections. To discourage jornaleros from missing work when they didn’t feel well, Ana and Conciencia treated them and delivered their babies. During the harvest months, the adults, free or chattel, were kept too busy for sexual relations. The months of el tiempo muerto, then, were actually the beginning of life, when most children were conceived, to be born in March, April, and May, at the peak of the harvest.
Besides the women in labor and newborns in the infirmary, there were other victims of the canebrakes. Severo had trained the workers to set controlled fires that scorched the leaves but left the juice-rich stalks exposed and easier to cut. Even during these burns there were accidents. The spectacular flames often entranced the boys who managed the bullocks until the heat singed their skin and hair. A barefoot worker might step on a smoldering patch that seemed doused. A calm day could turn windy and sparks might jump over rows, starting fires in a completely different area from what was planned, causing panic and isolating workers inside walls of flames and smoke.
While Severo avoided setting fires at night, it wasn’t unusual for the work to extend after sundown. This presented its own problems. Men, women, and children were in smoky darkness, swinging machetes, shovels, hoes, and pikes. It was more likely they’d be wounded by