Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [70]
Consuelo was the illegitimate daughter of Roberto Cofresí, the most daring and famous pirate in the Caribbean. Consuelo’s mother was one of the pirate’s mistresses, a tall and bosomy mulata born of a white soldier and a black free woman. From her, Consuelo inherited her tamarind skin and a long-limbed, fleshy, rounded body. Her cacao hair was the same shade and wavy texture as the pirate’s. She’d never owned a mirror, but she knew her eye color changed with the light, a fascination to the men she consoled.
She had keen memories of her notorious father, who, like Severo, came to see the two Consuelos with no prior notice and stayed just long enough to be missed when he left. He established Consuelo and Consuelo in a cottage near the beach on the outskirts of Cabo Rojo, his hometown. He often brought them trinkets and coins, pewter spoons, fringed shawls, and painted china from the ships he captured. His favorite targets were the well-appointed North American cargo ships. He told Consuelo that English sounded like barking, and that the yanquis were arrogant and more imperious than even the españoles.
The Spanish government didn’t actively pursue pirates so long as they didn’t attack ships flying the Spanish flag. Cofresí’s exploits, however, and his cruelty toward captured sailors, pressured the Spaniards to go after the infamous pirate. Cofresí was captured in 1825 and executed by firing squad in El Morro. A few days later, soldiers appeared in the two Consuelos’ cottage, searching for hidden booty. They ransacked the house, took everything of value, then set the place on fire. Consuelo was ten years old. She hardly remembered the next four or five years except that they walked and walked and walked until they reached Ponce, the bustling self-important city on the Caribbean, where Consuelo the elder entered a tavern, and soon she was comforting its customers. Consuelo the younger knew her first man’s hand on her body when she was eleven.
After her mother died, Consuelo left Ponce and walked west, toward the ruins of her burned house, but she didn’t make it that far. She knew how to do only one thing and, weary and hungry, she found a home and employment at a crossroads, north of Guares, in a hut behind a bar, available to whoever paid with money or goods. A fat hen was as acceptable as a few coins, so even the poorest campesino tilling the most unforgiving soil had hope of Consuelo. One day Severo Fuentes entered the bar at the crossroads looking for laborers. He spotted Consuelo leaning on the threshold of a door that never closed. Within days, he’d taken her away to a house by the sea, and all hope of comfort for the campesinos went with her.
The next morning, Severo woke up alone just as dawn purpled the sky. Consuelo was in the garden, snipping herbs between her hard thumbnail and index finger.
She looked up when she saw him stand, naked, the fine golden hair that covered his body shimmering. He whooped and ran into the sea, his muscular arms dipping into and emerging from the water in even strokes.
By the time he returned, Consuelo had heated fresh water in the shack where her cooking fire was never extinguished. She rinsed the salt water off his body and hair. A clean change of clothes was folded over the railing, and he dressed himself as she made the coffee. She served them both the strong, steamy liquid in the hollow of burnished coconut shells.
They sat in silence for some minutes, watching the sky lighten and the dew slide from the long, narrow channels of palm fronds. When they finished their coffee, Consuelo returned to the kitchen shack and came back with a gourd full of warm, soapy water, a leather strop, and his shaving blade. She wrapped a clean rag around his neck and, in slow strokes, shaved six days’ growth from his face and neck, finishing with a splash of jasmine-scented water on the jaw. A few minutes later she watched him mount his stupid horse and ride into the canebrakes.
Severo traversed the same path as the previous night, but when he neared Los Gemelos, he turned