Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [185]
She was angular, with small rounded breasts and pointed nipples. He was so moved by the sight of her, bare and vulnerable against the white sheets, that he couldn’t speak. Severo Fuentes kissed the hollow between her breasts, then pressed his ear to her chest and listened to the heart that beat within, the hard heart their child would have to conquer.
Ana didn’t want to let her condition change her routines, but her body wouldn’t ignore that almost nineteen years had passed since her last pregnancy. With Miguel she’d been strong and vigorous, resolved to work as hard as the men she’d lured to Puerto Rico. She hardly remembered being pregnant. This time, aches she’d never experienced disturbed her sleep and forced her to move more slowly than she liked. It was difficult to concentrate on the paperwork that consumed most of her mornings, and she lacked the stamina to manage her day-to-day activities.
“Conciencia,” Ana said one night as the girl was helping her get ready for bed. “Why didn’t the fire show me there would be another child?”
“No le sé decir, señora.”
“Because you didn’t know, or because you didn’t want to tell me?”
Conciencia finished braiding Ana’s hair and deftly tied ribbons into bows at the ends. “When I see something, I tell you, señora, but the fire never shows what people want to know. It shows what they need to know.”
“I need to know everything about Hacienda los Gemelos, about el patrón, about the future of this baby.”
“Maybe, señora, they don’t need as much of your attention right now.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Señora, it’s not my place to advise you about these things. I can only tell you what I see, and you decide.”
“I’m asking for your opinion.”
“Ay, señora.” Conciencia thought a moment, seemed about to say something, changed her mind, then spoke. “You need to pray for your other son, the one across the ocean.”
“You’re humoring me, Conciencia.”
“No! You asked for my opinion, just like everyone who comes to me. But my answer doesn’t satisfy you.”
“Because it disturbs me”—Ana climbed into bed—“that slaves and campesinos get more from their consultations with you than I do.”
“I’m very sorry about that, señora.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Conciencia assumed unexpected power when seen in lamplight through the haze of mosquito netting. Ana had the impression that what separated them was not sheer fabric but shifting ripples of smoke. Leaning to one side, her too-close eyes peering into Ana, Conciencia seemed to be reading her. Although they’d been looking at each other, Ana was startled when Conciencia spoke.
“Slaves and campesinos need me more, señora. But they ask for less.”
The statement was insolent and deserved a reprimand, but rather than affronted, Ana felt ashamed. Conciencia’s crooked figure, the hump that became more pronounced as she grew older, was a rebuke. “You can go,” she said, and the girl backed away as if Ana were a potentate on a jeweled throne.
Conciencia was the only slave Ana owned. She’d claimed her, raised her as if she were a daughter, not a servant, but Conciencia was neither of those things. Ana had assumed that the baby who appeared on her door the day Miguel was taken to San Juan belonged to her, not like a child belongs to a mother but like an object to be used. Conciencia had not been, in her mind, a distinct being with her own will and intelligence. She’d been her shadow, her maid, her assistant, her prescient, if unreliable, companion. Now Ana saw a young woman, gifted beyond her age and experience, dependent on her, yes, but old enough and smart enough to pass judgment on her behavior and actions.
Ana recalled herself at that age, seeing her parents through her own resentment and prejudices, implacable, unwilling, unable to forgive them for real or imaginary transgressions. Conciencia,