House on the Lagoon

by Rosario Ferré

  36

  Quintín’s Folly

  I TRIED TO BRING QUINTÍN to his senses. “You’re a bully and a despot, just like your father before you,” I said as we got ready for bed. “You think Manuel is like you, that he’d do anything to inherit Gourmet Imports. But he doesn’t care about money the way you do, and he’s proud. Esmeralda’s daughter is wonderfully accomplished, and she’s also very nice. You must apologize to Manuel and let him marry Coral.”

  But Quintín wouldn’t listen. “Buenaventura and Rebecca would never forgive me,” he insisted. “I’d rather be dead than have mulatto grandchildren and be related to Esmeralda Márquez.”

  “What about Willie?” I asked. “Where does that leave him?” But Quintín wouldn’t answer.

  The walls of the house on the lagoon had ears, and by evening everybody knew Quintín and Manuel had had a serious argument. Eulodia told me Petra was terribly upset; she had been praying to Elegguá for hours. That evening, she sent Eulodia with a message that she had something important to tell me. At ninety-three, Petra hardly ever came up to the first floor of the house. Her arthritis kept her from going up the stairs, and she was visibly strained from the effort as she entered my room.

  “Manuel came to the cellar to see me before he left,” Petra said gravely. “He said his father had told him to get out, but he didn’t know where to go. He didn’t have any money for a hotel, so I told him he could stay with Alwilda in Las Minas. She has a relatively comfortable place; she gets a disability check from the federal government every month. I also told him not to pay attention to Quintín, to go to work tomorrow morning as if nothing had happened. ‘Quintín will eventually get over his tantrum,’ I said to calm him. ‘Your father is upset because he thinks you’re too young to get married. But he’s a good man. He’ll come to his senses.’ Manuel promised he’d follow my advice.”

  I could see Petra was very concerned, and I was grateful. But I didn’t add any comment to what she had said. “Quintín is always letting me down, Isabel,” she said somberly, shaking her head. “He’s going to make Elegguá very angry if he doesn’t let Manuel marry Esmeralda Márquez’s daughter.” And then she added: “I’m not sure if I want to go on working in this house if Quintín goes on like this.”

  Petra’s words shocked me—she had always been so loyal to Quintín. “It’s Rebecca’s blood coming out in him,” I said to appease her. “You know how much stock Rebecca put in public opinion, and sometimes Quintín can’t help being like her. It’s one thing to adopt Willie and be liberal-minded, another for everyone in San Juan to know the Mendizabals are marrying mixed blood. You must be patient, Petra. This is not easy for Quintín; but I’m sure in the end he’ll come through. Right now, Quintín needs you more than ever. You mustn’t leave.”

  The next day I went to see Esmeralda in San Juan to inform her what had happened. She knew already; Coral had heard from Manuel, who had told her everything. Alwilda had moved out and left her cottage at Manuel’s disposal. The upsetting thing was that Coral had also left her parents’ house. “She didn’t even ask permission from Ernesto and me,” Esmeralda told me agitatedly. “She simply told us she was leaving. We’re glad she’s with Manuel—we think he’s a wonderful boy and we hope they’ll get married. But we’re worried something may happen to her in that awful slum of Las Minas if she goes there alone.”

  I explained to Esmeralda that half the population of Las Minas was related to Petra, and both Coral and Manuel would be perfectly safe there. “Petra is like a sovereign in the slum,” I told her. “People worship her. Once they know Manuel and Coral are under her protection, they’ll do everything to help them.” I thought of trying to get in touch with Manuel myself, but it was difficult to do. The only way to reach Alwilda’s house was by boat, and I didn’t want to phone him at the warehouse. Quintín had made it clear he didn’t want me to try to patch things up. He expected Manuel to come to him and ask forgiveness on his own.

  In the next few weeks I tried to convince Quintín to take the first step and make peace with Manuel, but it was no use. I could tell he was unhappy. He had begun to grow heavy, not fat, but solid—as if the flesh had hardened on his bones. At night, when he went to sleep next to me, he reminded me of a medieval warrior laid out in full armor. He refused to speak to Manuel when he ran into him at the warehouse, paid him three dollars an hour—the minimum wage—canceled his medical insurance, and expected him to work from six in the morning until six in the evening. Manuel wasn’t one to complain; he was punctual and didn’t miss a day of work.

  One Sunday morning, Manuel came to the house in one of the company delivery vans to get the rest of his things. When I saw him load up his personal possessions—his clothes, his basketball, his camera, his fishing tackle, even his blue Vespa—my heart broke. I went to the study and begged Quintín to relent and ask Manuel to stay, but he sat stone-faced in the red leather chair reading the newspaper; he didn’t even lift his eyes from the page. “Tell him to return the van to Gourmet Imports as soon as possible. I didn’t give him permission to use it, but I won’t dock his salary this time,” he said.

  Willie was with his brother, helping him move. I went upstairs and sat on the terrace overlooking the lagoon, sure that Manuel would come looking for me after he had finished packing. But he never did. He went to the cellar to say goodbye to Petra, and after a while I heard the van’s motor start, and then I heard it leave. I felt as if someone had died.

  Willie couldn’t understand why his father was being so headstrong, but he didn’t want to judge him. Quintín had always been good to him; he had gotten along well with both his sons. He used to talk to Willie about the Spanish Conquistadors and about the pride he should take in their tradition of excellence. Willie thought that, because he was adopted, he didn’t have the Conquistadors’ blood in him, but nonetheless he shared in the family mystique. As to his recent disagreement with Manuel, getting married was a very serious thing, Quintín told him. One didn’t take such a significant step unless one was completely independent. Buenaventura wouldn’t give Quintín permission to get married until he had worked for more than a year and had his own income. Willie should remind Manuel of this when he next saw him. Willie didn’t entirely believe his father, but he was willing to go along. He looked at him with his sad gray-green eyes and hoped that time would wear down Quintín’s objections.

  Willie didn’t have his brother’s problem. He was sixteen going on seventeen, too young to even think of marriage. But he was one of those people who are born old. He had innate wisdom. When he went out with Perla, they touched and kissed, but it never went beyond that. They went to the movies and held hands in the dark. They dreamed of getting married one day but wanted everything to be as it should.

  Willie was worried about Manuel and spent hours trying to figure out how to help him. When Manuel first moved to the slum, Willie wanted to move there, too; he felt bad about staying in a comfortable house when his brother was living in such dire conditions. So he brought him food, clothes, records, the LP player and portable television set they had shared. But Manuel didn’t appreciate Willie’s efforts to keep in touch. Sometimes Willie felt Manuel wanted to shoo him away like a pesky bird.

  Willie would arrive at Alwilda’s house in the Boston Whaler at ten or eleven in the evening, when he knew his brother would be there. He could hear him breathing through the weather-beaten planks of the walls. There was no electricity in Las Minas and it was terribly dark; there were so many mosquitoes Manuel had to keep all the windows and doors shut. Willie would get out of the boat, climb up on the rickety balcony, and knock repeatedly on the door, listening to the breathing inside and growing more and more concerned. Was Manuel sick, or was there something wrong? He pleaded with him to tell him if he was all right.

  One day Manuel got tired of his brother’s naïveté and decided to give Willie the message. He turned on the battery-powered lantern on the floor next to his bed, and through the tiniest chink in the wood
en planks Willie saw a wreath of arms, legs, and thighs, and Coral’s red hair flowing over Manuel’s shoulders like a fiery shawl. That was the last time Willie went to Alwilda’s house looking for his brother. Now he knew why Manuel didn’t have any time for him.

  I began to suspect Coral had something to do with Manuel’s painful rejection of me also and asked Esmeralda to tell her that I wanted to see her. “I’ll try to arrange it, Isabel,” Esmeralda said to me anxiously, “but we haven’t been able to talk to her in days. She left her job at The Clarion and is working with the Independentista Party full-time. She hardly ever comes here anymore.” But a few days later Coral came to see me at the house on the lagoon. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans, no makeup, and no bra. Her breasts were drawn against her puckered-cotton voile blouse like alabaster moons, and all of a sudden she reminded me of Estefanía and how much we had enjoyed shocking the people of Ponce when we were young. But Coral was different; she had a cold beauty, as if she had been sculpted in marble. She was no frolicking temptress like Estefanía, but more like a determined Amazon.

  I was in the study, and when Coral came in I made a place for her next to me on the couch. I liked Coral. She reminded me of myself when I was her age; I had the same intensity, the same need to empty life’s cup to the dregs. She chose to sit on one of the red leather chairs opposite me, however, took a cigarette from her purse, and lit it without smiling. “I hear Manuel and you are planning to get married, and I think that’s wonderful,” I said to her. “You mustn’t worry about what Quintín says; he’s terribly old-fashioned, but eventually he’ll come around. You can count on me for anything. Why don’t we go together to look for a nice apartment for you two? Las Minas isn’t the place to live.” Coral said she’d think about it, and I didn’t insist.

  She got up from her chair and went to look at the family photographs, which stood in silver frames on the desk: Buenaventura as a young man recently arrived from Spain, with his sombrero Cordobés jauntily perched on his head; Rebecca as Queen of the Spanish Antilles, wearing her crown of pearls; Arístides Arrigoitia as chief of police, standing next to Governor Winship at a reception in the Governor’s Palace; Arístides in his gala uniform, with Quintín sitting on his knees as a child. Coral picked up a photograph of Willie and Manuel when they were children and looked at it closely. They stood smiling under a palm tree at the entrance to Alamares High School, Manuel’s arm affectionately draped around Willie’s shoulders.

  I broke down and opened my heart to her. “It’s sad, isn’t it? For the first time in their lives, Manuel and Willie have stopped talking to each other. We haven’t heard from Manuel since the day he left the house; he hasn’t come to see us once. Is he all right? Is he living in Las Minas with you because of his Independentista friends?”

  “Manuel and I are living in Las Minas because we want to, not because we have to,” she told me sternly. “The slum is part of our way of life now. We believe that, if one wants to change the world for the better, one must become part of the proletariat. Manuel hasn’t come to see you because he hasn’t had the time; when he gets out of Gourmet Imports he works until late at night at the Party’s headquarters. But he’s happy; now he has something to live for.”

  I had heard from Esmeralda about Coral’s radical political ideas, so it didn’t surprise me to hear her talk like that. To appease her and try to win her over, I told her that in my youth—before I met Quintín—I had worked with Abby in the slums of Ponce, teaching poor children skills like sewing and photography to help them survive in the world. “I’ve never reproached Manuel for being an Independentista,” I said. “I think Quintín made a terrible mistake.”

  Coral burst out laughing. “I know all about you, Isabel, and your ‘liberal’ ideas. Manuel talks about them all the time. But this house, the life you lead, is a complete contradiction of them. All private property is the result of theft! You’re nothing but a sellout and a sham.”

  QUINTÍN

  QUINTÍN WAS WORRIED. THE private detective he had hired told him that Manuel was in serious trouble. He had left the house and was living with Coral in Las Minas; they had joined an Independentista terrorist group called the AK 47. Statehood was ahead in the plebiscite polls and the Independentistas were sure to carry out violent reprisals before the voting took place.

  But Quintín was even more concerned about Isabel. Isabel had become very depressed and hardly went out at all; she sat in the study for hours gazing out toward the lagoon.

  Quintín felt guilty because once he had discovered the manuscript, instead of being understanding and patient with Isabel, instead of talking to her about how she was being poisoned by Petra’s gossip, he had gotten angry and thrown in some disparaging remarks about Isabel’s family. It had been a stupid mistake not to try to approach her once he had found the novel. They should have brought things out into the open and confessed their worries to each other.

  Since Quintín had gone into the study the last time, there were four new chapters in Isabel’s manuscript. This made eight chapters in all he hadn’t read. In spite of the doctor’s recommendation, Quintín tore through them. “The Forbidden Banquet,” Quintín had to admit, was surprisingly faithful to reality. The affair with Carmelina Avilés had happened; there was no way to deny it. For seventeen years Quintín had paid the price; Isabel had never let him forget it. She had had the moral upper hand in their marriage for years, and he had been smothered in guilt. What did one do in a situation like that? The spirit was strong but the flesh was weak, and Quintín was neither the devil Isabel portrayed in her novel nor the angel she wanted him to be. He was simply a man, and temptation was always present in a man’s life.

  Quintín’s heart was pounding. After the trouble with Carmelina, he had tried to be a loving husband, a good father, a good provider. He had even adopted Willie without being sure he was his child, just because Isabel had asked him to. After all, Carmelina had left the house immediately after their encounter and had lived in New York for almost a year. She was nineteen years old then and could have had any number of lovers. But Quintín knew that Petra would have testified against him in court and he couldn’t stand the thought of a public scandal. What hurt him the most, though, was that Isabel wouldn’t forgive him. So he gave in, and they took in Willie, as they had taken in Carmelina herself many years ago.

  Isabel had always been partial toward the child. Her love for Willie was almost an obsession; she grew incensed if she thought Willie was being slighted in any way. She was capable of insulting strangers in the street and even her own friends if she thought they were being prejudiced. Quintín had to be on his guard and try to be as fair as Solomon to escape Isabel’s ire. He had come to terms with the situation easily enough when the boys were young; he was sincerely fond of Willie. But he couldn’t deny he loved Manuel more, because he was his own flesh and blood.

  Quintín tried to go on reading, but he began to feel ill. His head was reeling and he couldn’t breathe. He loved Isabel above all else; the thought of losing her was unbearable. She had to believe him rather than Petra.

  He put the manuscript down and made up his mind to give Isabel an answer. He would write down his version of what had happened with Carmelina. The trouble was, he knew he couldn’t write as well as Isabel could. His efforts at correcting her were puny and sketchy by comparison. He could write with ease about Doña Valentina Monfort, about Margot Rinser, adorning the facts here and there, because those people weren’t important to him. But how did one put one’s personal tragedies down on paper for all to read? How did one say one’s heart was breaking without sounding melodramatic? If only he was able to write about himself, to confess what he really felt at that moment, his shameful passion for a woman who had betrayed him—but he couldn’t do it. He felt beaten. All he could manage was a dry summary of what had taken place.

  Quintín took out his pencil and began to write on the back of one of Isabel’s pages:

  “The day of the picnic at Lucumí
Beach, I was making a great effort to appear gay and lighthearted, but that was far from the way I really felt. Margarita’s tragedy had affected all of us. Manuel needed cheering up, and so did I. Isabel didn’t make the least effort to lift the family’s spirits. For days, she was resentful and distant. If I tried to comfort her, she would push me away with a hand as cold as ice. I got only despondent looks, gloomy unresponsiveness, irritable answers to my questions.

  “Crab is an aphrodisiac—anyone who has had it knows that—and that day at the beach I had washed down half a dozen with a bottle of cold Riesling. All of a sudden, the combination of the crab’s strong taste and the wine’s delicate bouquet made me inexplicably happy. For the first time since Margarita’s death, I managed to dispel the ominous cloud I had been living under. I got up from the sand dune where I was sitting and looked over at Carmelina, who was swimming at that moment toward the mangroves. What took place between us was something no one, not even God Almighty, could have prevented.”

  37

  AK 47

  AT FIRST MANUEL JOINED the Independentista Party just to please Coral, but his resentment toward his father radicalized him. Every evening I imagined them lying on Alwilda’s old mattress in the little wooden house built on stilts, listening to the waters of Morass Lagoon drifting by under them. Knowing Coral, I suspect they probably didn’t talk about love or about their plans for the future, as lovers usually do, but mostly about politics.

  “The plebiscite will cause a crisis on the island. We must stop being Hamlets and make up our minds to do something,” Coral proclaimed to Manuel one day. “Only radical action can change the dangerous course our island is on right now.”

  The political struggle was escalating, and we were all surprised when the polls showed statehood ahead by a slim majority—it had forty-nine percent of the vote. Commonwealth had forty-seven percent, and independence four percent. But polls were not to be trusted; voters were fickle, and the situation could change from one day to the next. Commonwealth and independence sympathizers warned against losing our culture and our language if we became a state in the Union. Statehooders wielded economic arguments; their advertising campaign was like a barrage from a machine gun that fired coins at you. The island at present received eight and a half billion dollars in federal funds and with statehood it would receive three billion more; the benefits of social security and of national health programs would be double what they were. Even after paying federal taxes, which the islanders didn’t do under their commonwealth status, they stood to gain enormous economic benefits, four to five billion additional dollars, under statehood. “There’s no stopping statehood now,” the radio and television blared. Coral and Manuel thought it was a losing battle—independence didn’t stand a chance, and even commonwealth, which had been the island’s status since Luis Muñoz Marín’s time, was threatened.