Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [57]
Ana might be in quarantine, but she was not insensible.
“Spending money to buy land seems reckless when we’re twenty slaves short for the cuerdas already planted and need at least another five bullocks and carts.”
“We’re aware of that,” Ramón said, “but land is the only thing that doesn’t grow on this island.” He grinned, pleased with his cleverness, but Ana remembered the same phrase used by her neighbor Faustina de Morales.
She didn’t smile back. She turned to Inocente, hoping that he’d see her side of the argument. “Buying land will be costly. Don’t forget that we have to repair the boiling house and purgery—”
“If we don’t buy what’s available along the borders of Los Gemelos,” Inocente said, “it will cost more later. People hold on to their land, but these sellers absolutely need the money, and each property can be bought at an attractive price.”
“We don’t have endless resources,” Ana insisted. “We’ve spent most of the cash we brought with us, including my dowry.”
“Don’t worry,” Ramón said. “Inocente and I know what we’re doing. It will all turn out well at the end.” A week later, they bought both parcels, adding another hundred cuerdas to the hacienda as well as four women and six children.
“We need strong men,” Ana complained, “not more women and children.”
“The owner had already sold the four husbands away,” Ramón said.
Ramón took Miguel into his arms. “Hacienda los Gemelos is for you,” he said to the infant. “It is for you that your mamá and your uncle and I work so hard. It is for you, hijo mío.”
As she watched him kiss and caress the child, Ana asked herself why Ramón assumed Miguel was his son. She had no way of knowing when Miguel was conceived because the brothers were diligent about whose turn it was to sleep with her. Maybe it didn’t matter to them so long as there was an Argoso son to carry their name into the next generation. Ramón had registered the baby at the Guares church using both their names and the name of the saint on whose feast day he was born: Ramón Miguel Inocente Argoso Larragoity Mendoza Cubillas.
Doña Leonor wrote asking about every aspect of Miguel’s development. “We’d like to come for a visit. We’re anxious to hold him in our arms,” her first, excited letter read after the news.
“Absolutely not.” Inocente slapped the pages on the table.
“But he’s their first grandson,” Ramón argued. “Of course they’d want to see him.”
“They shouldn’t come here until—” Inocente paused, wrestling for a good reason. “Until we live more comfortably,” he finally said.
Ramón and Inocente looked at each other, communicating silently. Ramón seemed about to disagree. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, giving in.
As ever, Ana drafted their responses, but she found it harder each time to come up with another excuse the more doña Leonor insisted that nothing else mattered; all she cared about was seeing her grandson.
After Miguel was born, Ramón and Inocente talked as they always did—finishing each other’s sentences, drawing plans in the air with their fingers—but Ana could tell something was different. Before the baby was born, no matter whom they were addressing, Ramón and Inocente looked at each other when they talked, as if the other twin were the only person in the room who mattered. Now the tension between them was visible, yet they smiled and joked and talked like always. If she looked them too long in the eyes, however, they shifted their gazes, as if hiding something.
During Ana’s quarantine, Flora slept in a hammock next to her bed so that she could help with the baby. Miguel rooted at her breast, but Ana couldn’t make enough milk. He howled constantly from hunger and frustration. Inés, the carpenter’s wife, was weaning their youngest son, so she was brought in to nurse Miguel. The house that Ana used to have to herself most of the day while the men were away was now a hive of comings and goings, with Flora, Inés, and Damita