Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [170]
He tossed and turned most of the night in anguish, begging God to take him, too. “I can’t live,” he prayed, “without her. I don’t exist without her.”
As the sun climbed over the distant mountains, he finally fell, the rosary clamped around his fingers. His chest rose and dropped in deep, smooth breaths that became shallow and uneven, until at last, and with a grateful sigh, he was released.
During his grandmother’s wake and funeral, and two months later, at his grandfather’s, Miguel was overcome by memories he didn’t know he had. He kept revisiting his father’s death nearly fourteen years earlier. He vividly remembered crimson stains on the hammock where Papá was carried from the accident. He heard again his father’s screams as he was lifted onto the cart, and he remembered Nana Damita’s surprising agility climbing in after him, and Mamá’s face pinched into an angry frown, as if she didn’t approve of the fuss being made over his father. He remembered dust from people running here and there, and Severo’s big horse and his dogs. The bright midday sun, he now remembered, made the shadows round.
So many memories! Nana Inés carried him from the batey to the rocks by the river where Nena washed clothes, and Indio and Efraín followed, and they cried inconsolably, even Nena, and no one told them to stop. When they returned to the batey, everything was quiet. Nana Inés took him to her bohío, and she cooked while he and Indio and Efraín built houses with scraps from the workshop. The next morning, José was making a long box, and when Miguel asked what it was for, José’s eyes watered and Miguel knew his father was dead. He wailed, and Nana Inés left her fogón and took him in her arms, and Indio and Efraín stood next to her, and José rubbed his head, and they hugged and kissed him, which felt good, but not like when Papá caressed and kissed him.
“You have to be a good boy,” Nana Inés told him. “You have to be brave, mi hombrecito, because now you’re the man of the house.”
He didn’t know what she meant then but understood it now, in front of his grandfather’s coffin. He was the last Argoso of his clan. Even though he’d felt like a man the night he lost his virginity to Tranquilina Alivio, he knew for certain that his life as a man was only just beginning. And yet, all he could think about was how tenderly Nana Inés held him when he was just a boy, and how sweetly she kissed his forehead and murmured, “It will be all right, mi hombrecito. Everything will be all right.”
Elena and Siña Ciriaca had always known what to do for Miguel. After his grandparents died, the two women walked the rooms of the house aimlessly, looking after things that would never be used again, like Abuela’s harp and Abuelo’s saber and plumed hat. Miguel sensed that Elena and Siña Ciriaca needed something from him, but he didn’t know what that might be. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them what to do, which seemed to disappoint them, but he had no idea what they could do for him other than the usual. He was just as lost as they. If he left the house for a cafecito, to visit don Simón, or simply to stroll around the plaza for some air, the two women stood together at the top of the stairs watching him go until he’d closed the street door behind him. With their black garments and somber faces, they looked like twin crows with no potential for flight.
Because he was in mourning, Miguel couldn’t pursue the usual amusements that filled his hours. He gave up evenings at the Alivio house, playing cards with friends, and accompanying Andrés on the guitar while they sang love songs under the balconies of deserving señoritas. There were no more visits to Benito’s drugstore for discussions into the late hours, and the few men he knew to be part of the secret society had suddenly vanished from the city. A few days after Abuelo’s funeral, Andrés embarked for Spain, so even his closest friend deserted him at the moment when he most needed him.
During the first weeks of