Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [94]
“I hope you like the flavor of mamey,” Faustina said, handing Leonor and Elena glassfuls. “It took me a while to develop a taste for it, but I now find agüita de mamey the most refreshing drink after a long journey.”
“What a pretty, tranquil place you have,” Elena said, her lovely face tinged in soft pink, as if expressing an opinion were such an unaccustomed deed that it made her blush.
“Gracias, señorita.” Luis inclined his head in an abbreviated bow. “Faustina chose this spot for the house. As you can see, we’re expanding.” He waved chubby fingers toward the new construction. “When we first came here, there was nothing but a few shacks and a pigsty. But we’ve done better than expected.”
Faustina turned to Leonor. “It’s not easy to live so far from the amenities in the city, but we do our best. Your room is comfortable?” The question at the end of what began as a sentence invited a compliment.
“Charming,” Leonor said, “and Ciriaca was very attentive.”
Faustina smiled complacently. “Yes, she’s very good. I inherited her from my brother, may he rest in peace. It’s a pity we can’t keep her, but we really don’t need more domestics. Luis plans to trade her, and her daughter, who waited on you, señorita Elena, for more laborers.”
“The truth is,” Luis added, “that a business like ours depends on peons. We don’t keep a town house, so servants like Ciriaca and Bombón, with few skills beyond the four walls of a great house, are practically useless to us.”
“I hope our son and daughter-in-law have done even half as well as you have done here,” Leonor said, wishing to compliment their hosts once more. Then she saw it again, the cloud that swept over the faces of people who knew something about Los Gemelos that she didn’t, the flutter of the eyelids, the pressing of the lips, the sudden urge to change the subject.
“What news,” Faustina asked brightly, “do you bring from San Juan?”
EL CAMINANTE
They left San Bernabé at first light, pursued by glorious birdsong. The farm was situated in the high hills along a river, and in every direction that Leonor and Elena looked, there were cultivated groves of fruit trees, coffee, bananas, and plantains; terraced gardens where peons worked close to the ground; men, women, and children hoeing, weeding, moving earth while overseers on horseback rode from one end of the fields to the other. The coach slanted downhill; the wheels and frame groaned and screeched as if they could feel pain on the slopes as the horses picked their way down the serpentine paths. Several times Elena covered her eyes when the coach rolled close to the edge of a sheer drop, the vegetation so thick that it could be night at the bottom. Hidden among the thickets were cottages roofed with palm fronds, and smoke curling into the wind from cooking fires.
One minute they were in the forest and the next moment the landscape opened to a broad plain with canebrakes at various stages of cultivation. It was a violent shift from shadow to light, from steep to flat, from breezy coolness to a powerful oppressive heat and a pitiless sun rising to its zenith. As they entered the cane, Eugenio rode ahead, and when Leonor peeked out the window, she saw that he was talking to another man on horseback accompanied by two hounds, upon which Eugenio and his mount kept wary eyes.
“That was Severo Fuentes,” Eugenio reported on his way back. “We’ll be there in about an hour. He’s gone ahead to let Ramón and Ana know.”
Within seconds the interior of the coach hummed like a boudoir before a ball as Leonor and Elena scratched through the traveling cases at their feet for linen hand towels and flasks of water, perfumes, combs, powders, fresh gloves, clean lace collars, and cuffs. They helped each other button and fasten, tug and smooth bodices and waistlines, straighten stockings and tie laces on their shoes so that by the time the coach rolled into