The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [13]
“Blessed Mother who gives life, forgive us,” Juana interrupted. She raised both her hands up in the air as though to complain to the stars.
“Señor Pico shouted at the men and blew the klaxon,” Luis continued. “Two of the men ran off. The other one didn’t seem to hear the horn. The automobile struck him, and he went flying into the ravine. He yelled when the automobile hit him, but when we came out to look, he was gone. It was a bracero, maybe one who works at Don Carlos’ mill.”
I knew most of the people who worked with Sebastien at Don Carlos’ mill, lived in Don Carlos’ compounds, and toiled in Don Carlos’ cane fields. The valley was small enough that most of us were familiar with one another. I thought immediately of Sebastien. Surely another worker would have come for me already had Sebastien been struck by Señor Pico’s automobile.
Something rustled under the flame tree. We all jumped to our feet. I expected to see Sebastien running towards me, his body drenched in blood. Instead, it was Doctor Javier and his younger sister, Beatriz. Beatriz spent her days pounding her fingers on a piano in her mother’s parlor and speaking Latin to herself. She wanted to be a newspaper woman, it was said, travel the world, wear trousers, and ask questions of people suffering through calamities greater than hers. Señor Pico had been courting Beatriz—who had no interest in him—before he began pursuing the señor a. One day, when Beatriz had abruptly asked him to leave her mother’s parlor so she could play her piano alone, the señor had stumbled down the road in a haze of lovesick rejection and seen Señora Valencia, who was plucking red orchids from her father’s garden to put in the small vase at her bedside. Señor Pico, known to her only as Beatriz’s frequent escort at local society gatherings, suddenly joined in the orchid picking and after a month of visits to the señora’s parlor asked Papi for her hand in marriage. Papi said yes after consulting with the señora, on the condition that his daughter would stay in her own comfortable house rather than having to live in one of those meager isolated bungalows near the barracks, where Señor Pico often needed to be located due to his special military duties.
Juana rose to greet the doctor and Beatriz. Beatnz had braided some bright ribbons into her caramel-colored, calf-length hair; the braid swayed back and forth like a giant fish skeleton across her back.
Nodding to Juana, Doctor Javier asked, “Has the father arrived?”
“Yes, he has come,” Juana said. “Good evening, Señorita Beatriz.”
“Salve!” replied Beatriz in Latin.
“¡Hola! to you too, Señorita Beatriz,” Juana said, dusting off the back of her dress. “Will you please go into the house?”
I didn’t stop worrying about Sebastien. As the laughter and Beatriz’s effortless Latin phrases echoed from Señora Valencia’s bedroom, I walked over to the flame tree and peeked at the dead goat Señor Pico had brought home. Near the bloody spot where the goat’s nose almost touched the ground lay my sewing basket and Sebastien’s still-unfinished shirt. I had dropped them there when I’d heard Señora Valencia’s first screams. I picked up the basket and Sebastien’s shirt and took them back to the rocker with me. The joyful reunion continued upstairs while Luis kept fanning the flames to keep Señor Pico’s bath warm.
Soon after, Doctor Javier watched me from afar as he left with Beatnz. Señor Pico was ready for his bath; Luis carried the water to him.
“My wife wishes to see you,” Señor Pico shouted at me from across the yard.
I went to her room. She was lying in bed, alone for a brief moment, her children sleeping nearby.
“I am grateful to you, Amabelle, for what you did today.” She reached over and squeezed my hands.
When her husband entered the room in