“Rafael!”
“Yes, coming!”
Rafael studies his reflection in the mirror: the slicked-back hair, the fuzz growing on his upper lip, the strength and stoicism of his gaze. The whitening powder has faded since he began to sweat, and now Rafael can detect the slight mulatto hue to his skin underneath.
“We’re starting,” his father cries from the other room.
“I’ll be right there!” he calls back.
He snatches the whitening powder from the shelf in his closet and begins to dust his face. As he works, he thinks: You are a small-town campesino with black blood tainting your veins. In the mirror, Rafael sees a hick from a lazy family of nothings and nobodies. He knows that he’s been plagued by more than just bad omens, more than just the overturned bottle caps of this evening; he’s been plagued by the meanness of his birth. He dabs his chin and cheeks and forehead, the excess gritty powder suspending in the air like a thick fog. As he watches his skin whiten into magnificent, matted formality, Rafael silently tells himself that it will take concentrated effort, mammoth discipline and power, and more than a little bit of daring to overcome the curse of his origins and achieve all that he deserves.
He finishes, replaces the powder, and straightens his collar and jacket. He both looks and feels better with this lighter face, with the oil of his skin blotted away. He considers putting on a tie, but decides against it. “Later,” he tells his image as he closes his closet door, “you shall wear your very best.”
By the time Rafael joins his family in the dining room, the casual meal has lapsed into disarray. Only his mother and two older sisters remain seated at the long table, eating their beans, rice, and mashed yucca. His father and Uncle Plinio have already wolfed down their food and left their bowls on the table for the women to clear. They’re now reclining on the worn sofa in the living room, thickening the air with coarse smoke from their cigars, seemingly oblivious to the constant hair-pulling and spitting of Pípi and Pedro on the floor beneath them. Julieta’s inexplicable crying has stopped at last, but she’s still barricaded in her bedroom and nobody cares enough to investigate how she’s doing. In his parents’ bedroom, Héctor babbles in his crib. Pétan crouches in the corner with his bowl of beans. Although there’s a chair for him to use, he’s too enamoured of Aníbal’s snake to sit at the table, cooing at the creature with more affection than he’s ever displayed to any one of his sexual conquests. When he notices that Rafael has entered, Pétan stands and grins sheepishly at his older brother. There’s no use apologizing for his stupidity. He’s not the least bit sorry, but he’s clearly afraid. Maybe a shit-eating grin will show enough contrition for the powdered boy to change his mind and help him cows at midnight.
Rafael gives Pétan a harsh glare, but relaxes into a smile when he turns towards his mother. “Mama,” he says as he stands tall by the end of the table and bows his head, as he would to a matron he’d only just met. “Thank you so much for this meal.”
“You’re welcome,” says Doña Julia. She flashes a sharp sideways glance at Japonesa, letting the lazy and rude daughter know that she might pick up a few good manners from her gallant brother.
Rafael sits, tucks a napkin into his shirt, and begins to eat his meal, careful to push small bites onto his fork and to chew with his mouth closed. He dabs the corners of his lips with his napkin and requests a glass of water from his brother, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble. Pétan passes Rafael the jug and nods formally, as Rafael did to their mother, but he’s unable to make it look natural with his omnipresent crooked smirk.
“Plinio told me you took one of his ties again,” Doña Julia says as she sits back in her chair at the head of the table and watches him eat.
“Yes,” says Rafael.
“You should know better than that.”
“It’s important I look respectable at work,” he replies with a shrug. “It’s very important—and Uncle Plinio has the best ties.”
“That’s true,” calls Plinio from the living room. “I do have very good taste.”
“Don’t steal your uncle’s ties,” warns Doña Julia.
“I’ve been over this with Papa already and it’s resolved, I promise you.”
“Is it resolved?” His mother frowns and shakes her head. “I’m not so sure, Rafael. This is not the first time Plinio’s asked you to stop.”
Rafael lays his spoon down gently and stares hard at his mother. “Thank you for your concern, Mama, but I tell you once and for all, the problem has been resolved. I promise you it will not happen again.”
The intensity and seriousness of Rafael’s expression is enough to make Doña Julia turn away, raise her hands, and refrain from questioning him any further.
Rafael finishes his beans, cleans his lips, and folds his napkin into a perfect square, which he lays on the table. Doña Julia, Marína, and Japonesa gather bowls and carry them into the kitchen. Only when they’ve left the room does Rafael stand and turn to his brother Pétan.
“Go to Alvarez,” he says. “Tell him midnight, by the stable.”
Pétan raises his brow in surprise but wastes no time in questioning Rafael’s change of mind. He trots to the front door, grabs his hat, and leaves. Don Pepé watches him go but looks back at Rafael when he’s gone.
“Your brother’s sure in a hurry,” he says wryly. “What’s the rush?”
“Papa, may I ask a favour?”
“Of course.”
“I would like to borrow the mare tonight, if you don’t mind.”
“Uh-oh,” says Uncle Plinio with a grin. “Your boy wants the mare …”
“What’s the matter, chapita?” teases Don Pepé. “Have you got your eyes on a new girl? Going to chase her down on horseback? That’s good, but are you sure you know what to do when you catch her?”
“You should show him how to do it,” laughs Plinio. “You’re pretty good in that department.”
“That’s right. Bring her over here first and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“I can handle that part on my own, Papa.”
“Just be careful not to leave too much of your powder or perfume on her panties,” says Pepé.
“The poor girl’s father will have no trouble discovering the culprit,” laughs Plinio.
“I’ll take precautions,” says Rafael.
“Of course you can have the horse,” says Pepé. He sips his beer and adds: “Take her all night if you want.”
“Thank you, Papa,” says Rafael, offering another of his little nods.
“You’re welcome, good sir,” says Pepé.
As the men continue sucking their cigars, Rafael returns to his bedroom to prepare for the raid. In addition to certain precautions that must be taken, he feels it’s important to be presentable whenever he steps out of the house, even on a clandestine mission in the dark of night when the last thing he wants is to be seen. Moreover, although it’s too late to reverse the bad omen, he’d like to spend some time fixing the bottle caps and getting their order right. Alone, blissfully alone, he’s able to fill hours with his work on the windowsill.
Pétan returns at some point, but Rafael has no idea how long his brother has been gone, or how long he’s been focused on his task. Pétan doesn’t approach the bed. Instead, he stands near the doorway and says: “Midnight. It’s settled.” When he leaves the room, he closes the door quietly, knowing that the wisest thing to do is give his brother some time and space to finish with his bottle caps.
When Rafael’s work is completed, he stands and stretches, and then surveys with pride his caps on the windowsill. He’s no longer sweating or agitated, but his shoulders ache and the muscles along his arms feel depleted, as if they’re hanging off his bones. He leaves the room to gather and warm some water so he can take a sponge bath. When he returns with the filled tub, Rafael strips to his underwear and sprinkles a few drops of orange blossom bath oil in the water, a tincture he acquired from Cucho’s mother on the pretext of it being a gift for a girl
friend, and which he keeps stored in the back of his closet behind a pile of socks. He moves his sponge in tight circles across every inch of his chest, arms, and legs, enjoying the pungency of the orange blossom oil, a sweet scent that’s laced with a fecal tang of indole, which he can’t identify but loves.
When he’s sufficiently clean and fragrant, he stands in the doorway of his closet and tries to choose which of his three suits will best serve his purpose. Once he’s made his choice, he grooms the fabric meticulously for any particles of lint or dust and lays the suit on his bed without wrinkling it. Now he stands in front of the mirror, slathering his chest and neck with a potent cologne, which cost him almost two months’ salary. He puts on his shirt and suit, fusses tirelessly with his favourite purple tie, and combs his hair several times, using copious cream and considerable force. His goddamn hair won’t lie flat. He can’t seem to remove the kink. It’s the fucking Negro blood, he thinks as he lowers his comb. Always worse in the humidity. Rafael is so maddened by his curls, so disgusted by the faint dark hue in his cheeks, that he can’t at the moment maintain his self-deception that darker-skinned Dominicans—himself included—have Taino Indian rather than African heritage. No, it’s obvious this evening: he can see a slave’s residue in the bones of his face.
He has already powdered himself, but it hasn’t been enough. He lays the comb aside, dabs his pad in the whitening powder, and applies another thick layer to his cheeks, forehead, and neck. He’s gritting his teeth and patting his face hard with the makeup pad, wondering all the while why his pure-blood Spanish ancestor couldn’t stop himself just that once from ramming his cock into a black girl, as if those Haitian temptresses weren’t enough trouble already with their constant encroachments on Spanish land, their barbaric jungle religions, and their incomprehensible, mashed-up excuse for French.
Soon enough, the powder’s thickness has worked his skin tone back into a safer colour, and Rafael is now able to empty the rage from his eyes, leaving only a smouldering sexuality. Rafael knows he might encounter a potential conquest at any time, even in the dark of night while wrangling horses. He imagines a young beauty enraptured with the intensity of his stare, and is confident there is no longer any outward sign of his fury.
Pétan, who has been waiting outside their shared bedroom door for an hour, picking his cuticles and fantasizing about the ways he’s going to throw around his wealth, enters the room at eleven-thirty. He stands by the door, his hands clasped before him. “Almost there?” he asks his brother.
Rafael massages the knot of his tie one last time, moving it a millimetre to the left, and turns towards his brother. “Meet me at the field in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll wait for you here,” says Pétan, his hands clasped before him, his back slightly bent, trying his best to be subservient although it goes against his every instinct. “You look almost done.”
“No,” says Rafael. “It’s better to leave town alone. You go first. I’ll meet you soon after.”
Pétan grins. “Always think of everything, eh, Rafael?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” Pétan says, and slips out of the room.
Rafael picks up his old leather saddlebag and takes it into the dining room. His family is asleep, except for his father, who’s out drinking and cruising the town, picking up girls. He removes the board of punctured plywood covering Aníbal’s terrarium and grabs the long but harmless brown snake by its tail. He turns his head in disgust as the snake tries to coil against him. Rafael snaps his wrist a dozen times. He opens his saddlebag, drops the dead snake inside, and then goes out back to the kitchen to wash his hands three times in rapid succession, mumbling an inaudible mantra of his own authorship, similar in structure to a paternoster. He decides to leave the plywood ajar so Aníbal will think his pet has escaped. His crazy brother will be furious, Rafael knows, and would probably cut Rafael’s throat if he discovered who killed his snake. Rafael wipes his hands on a towel and then picks three oranges from the tree in the yard, sniffing each one quickly before he tucks them into his coat pocket. He goes back inside, picks up his saddlebag, and buttons it closed. He snuffs the oil lamp and leaves through the front door.
A cool breeze rustles the trees in the temperate, cloudless night. The streets are empty at this hour, easy enough to navigate with a quarter moon and innumerable stars. He’s walking down Constitution to the field at the edge of town where San Cristóbal’s better families board their horses. Rafael removes an orange from his pocket and, while he peels it, thinks that there’s no way Pétan was telling the truth; María would’ve been disgusted with a shrimp like him, and it didn’t even smell like her on his fingers. No, it was some other girl the rascal had seduced and taken advantage of. Pétan was just lashing out, the impetuous bastard, not so different from what he did with the bottle caps. Rafael drops the peeled orange on the street and steps on it with his heel. He bends down and retrieves a handful of seeds from the mash of juice and pulp. As he peels his second orange, Rafael can’t help grinning at his younger brother’s audacity. There are qualities to admire about Pétan—he’s determined and impassioned—but still it seems certain that his brother is mentally sick. For ruining his bottle caps and destroying the good omen, the shrimp cannot go unpunished. He needs to be reminded of the correct pecking order in the Trujillo family—namely, Rafael’s position at the top.
The street curves and transforms into a country road with wagon ruts and tall grasses growing on either side. Rafael slows, giving himself enough time to crush the two remaining oranges and to tuck their retrieved seeds into his pocket. As he approaches the field, he spies two silhouettes, one taller and one shorter, Cucho Alvarez and Pétan. They have bridled the trio of horses and now clutch the reins, waiting for him. Pétan is bouncing on his toes. Rafael stops ten feet away and pretends to draw a gun on his friend.
“Stop, thief! Drop the reins! Or I’ll take off the top of your head.”
“Go ahead and shoot,” says Cucho, grinning. “You won’t hit me.”
Rafael laughs, goes to Cucho, and hugs him in a firm and manly embrace. Cucho’s a beefy seventeen-year-old with widely spread, bulging eyes like a pug’s, thick shoulders, and popping biceps. He wears a tight linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up three-quarters and a cowboy hat. Cucho looks like a thug, but he’s got a soft voice with hints of a lisp, and he can’t stop himself from smiling most of the time. Rafael takes a set of reins from Cucho’s hands.
“Cigarette?” Cucho asks, offering him one from his pack. Rafael shakes his head no.
“I’ve got Papa’s horse ready,” says Pétan. “Go on and take her.”
“No,” says Rafael, smiling at his brother. “This is your plan and you deserve the honour. Why don’t you ride Papa’s mare for me?”
Pétan grins and raises his brow in mock hesitation. “All right,” he says. “If you insist.” He snorts, puffs out his chest, and spits in the dirt, empowered by his brother’s unexpected gesture of goodwill. Before Rafael has the chance to change his mind, Pétan flicks his cigarette into the field, mounts the mare, and gives her a little kick. The horse bucks once, nearly throwing Pétan, and then prances round the field until she calms down.
“Well,” says Pétan once he’s regained his balance and puffed out his chest again, “what are you waiting for?”
Rafael is careful to mount his horse in one swift motion, as he imagines a trio of gorgeous young women watching him move. He fixes on his saddlebag and unbuttons it. The boys kick off towards the river, their horses galloping hard, sensing their riders’ excitement. It’s not a long distance to the Nigua, but the brisk exercise of a sprint feels necessary for these would-be thieves. The wind relaxes their taut nerves. The boys slow their animals as they approach the banks of the river, and line them up in single file. The horses snort and huff as they lower themselves two feet into the shallows at the river’s edge. The gurgle of water buries the steady clop of horses’ hoofs; any hired campesino
s on patrol tonight won’t be able to hear them approaching.
“Cucho’s got the clippers,” says Pétan as they splash along the river, now riding beside each other.
“Good,” says Rafael. “Cucho gets to work on the fence while Pétan and I rustle the cows.”
“How many are we going to take?” asks Cucho.
“I don’t think Papa can lead more than a dozen to the valley,” says Pétan, “or he’ll get noticed. A dozen sounds good.”
“Let’s be safe,” says Rafael. “Six to eight.”
“Oh, come on,” scoffs Pétan. “Are you that much of a coward? I’m trying to make some money here.”
“You can still make money with eight.”
“I’m taking ten,” says Pétan.
“Ridiculous,” counters Rafael. “There’s no need.”
“Let’s take nine,” says Cucho, finally weighing in. “But only if they’re together. If scattered, we stop as low as six. I want to be in and out of that field in no more than five minutes.”
Pétan pulls his horse to a stop, sucks in his cheeks, and straightens his back. Rafael knows that his brother is emulating the images of Simón Bolívar he’s seen in school books and on posters, but Pétan’s fat nose and squat stature couldn’t be more of a contrast to the great liberator’s streamlined mien. “It’s my plan,” Pétan says. “I’m taking ten to twelve and that’s final.”
Rafael also sits taller on his horse. “Pétan,” he warns.
“No,” says Pétan, glaring at his brother.
“If you threaten me, Pétan, I’ll turn this horse around. I’ll just go home, you understand? I’m doing you a favour here. I’m already pushing the boundaries by letting Cucho say nine. We’re taking six to nine cows, nine at the most, and only if we can, and you’ll agree to that plan or you’ll be hitting that field all by yourself. And if that’s your choice, you really are an idiot. I’ll wish you the best of luck.”
Pétan spits into the dirt and refuses to budge his horse.
“If there’s any trouble,” says Cucho in the soft voice of a peacemaker, “I say we cross the river and head into the cane. Abandon the cows.”
The Iron Bridge: Short Stories of 20th Century Dictators as Teenagers Page 16
