House on the Lagoon

by Rosario Ferré

  The rum soon lifted the mourners’ spirits. They began to talk animatedly among themselves and seemed to be waiting for something to happen. Quintín and I moved to the back of the room, to keep out of the way as much as possible, but Willie knelt by Petra’s bed. He wasn’t afraid of death; he had glimpsed its face often enough during his epileptic fits. He took Petra’s hand and kissed it and then took a handkerchief out of his pocket and slowly wiped away the beads of perspiration on her forehead.

  “Can I do anything to make things easier for you, Grandmother?” he asked in a low voice, not sure if Petra could hear him. I was surprised that Willie should call her that, but he said it quite naturally, and I supposed it was a term of affection. Petra’s huge eyes opened and she looked straight at Willie. “Yes, you can,” she whispered, quite distinctly. “My relatives are all waiting for me to give Elegguá a new home. It’s the custom, before one dies, for the saint’s stone to be passed on to the worthiest of the Avilés family. But I want you to have him.”

  Petra had the women bring Elegguá’s effigy to the bed, as well as a square cardboard box, which she said held Elegguá’s toys—the rubber balls, the cigars, and the conchshell that had been on the altar a minute ago. Willie took them both reverently and held them against his chest. The six black women then lifted Petra up from the bed and carried her to the underground spring. It surprised me that they seemed to know exactly where to go, almost as if they had been there before. They walked into the cement trough together, without bothering to take off their skirts, and slowly dipped Petra’s body in the water. When she felt the cool liquid run over her, Petra seemed to find new strength, as if a great weight had been lifted from her breast. A half-smile appeared on her face. Willie came near and stood next to her, water up to his waist. “Buenaventura was right,” I heard Petra whisper to him. “Everything begins and ends in water. That’s why one must learn to forgive.” Then she heaved a great sigh and closed her eyes.

  That evening, Petra’s relatives placed her body on an open bier, carried it to a barge covered with flowers, and headed for Lucumí Beach. She had asked to be cremated there, so the mistral would blow her ashes toward Africa. The caravan of boats that followed was so long it reached all the way from Alamares to Morass Lagoon, cutting across the mangrove swamp. For one brief moment the procession linked our elegant suburb to the slum of Las Minas. Quintín stayed home and didn’t go to the funeral; he said he wasn’t feeling well. But Willie and I went in the Boston Whaler. And as we wound our way, singing and praying, across the maze of mangroves, candles flickering among the branches full of sleeping herons and creatures that scuttled away in the dark, I thanked Petra for everything she had done for us. Her name had suited her well: Petra means rock, and for the many years I had known her, she had been the rock on which the house on the lagoon had stood.

  41

  Quintín Offers to Make a Deal

  THE DAY AFTER PETRA’S FUNERAL, at breakfast, Quintín affectionately took my hand. “I think it’s time we discussed your manuscript in the open, Isabel,” he said in a conciliatory tone. “I’ve been reading it for weeks, and I know you know I know. I’m willing to make a deal. If you promise not to publish it, I promise I’ll tear up the will and won’t set up the Mendizabal Foundation. I’ll forgive you if you forgive me.”

  I stared at him in astonishment; I couldn’t believe he had finally had the courage to speak out.

  “One can’t be the warden of one’s fortune after death,” Quintín added appeasingly. “In any case, I’m still young; I hope to live awhile longer. Who knows what may happen in the future? Two years from now, Manuel may not be an Independentista any longer, and he’ll want to work with me at Gourmet Imports. The police informed me that Willie had nothing to do with the strike, just as you said, so it was wrong of me to want to punish him. I’ve called Mr. Domenech and he’s bringing the new will over so we can tear it up together. Then we can get rid of your manuscript once and for all, too.”

  I bowed my head and felt resentment well up in me like a tide. “What did you think of it?” I asked, my voice tightening. “Is it any good? If we destroy it, you’ll be my first and only reader, Quintín.”

  He was heartless. “Your novel has some good passages in it, Isabel,” he replied. “But it’s not a work of art. It’s a feminist treatise, an Independentista manifesto; worst of all, it distorts history. Even if we weren’t going to make a deal, I would advise you not to publish it.”

  “My novel is about personal freedom, Quintín, not about political freedom,” I said calmly. “It’s about my independence from you. I have a right to write what I think, and that’s what you haven’t been able to accept from the start.”

  And then I added: “I’m sorry, but I can’t make a deal with you. I’ve lost track of the manuscript; I have no idea where it is. I gave it to Petra for safekeeping after the strike, and Petra died that very night. I never had the chance to ask her where she put it. It could be anywhere in the house, or she might have taken it with her to the other world. You’ll have to go there to ask her where to find it, Quintín.”

  Quintín didn’t believe me. He looked everywhere: he emptied closets and drawers; he had all the books in the study removed from their shelves, and turned the cellar practically upside down, but he couldn’t find the manuscript.

  I searched on my own without Quintín’s knowledge, but I had no luck. At first I was distraught; I couldn’t believe that something which was so much a part of me was gone. Then I gradually became reconciled to my fate. Maybe it was just as well the novel was lost. It was my secret offering to Elegguá, so that he would protect my sons.

  42

  Willie’s Clairvoyance

  WILLIE HAD SUFFERED A detached retina from his beating at the hands of the police. When our friend Mauricio Boleslaus heard the news he came to visit us at the house. He had exhibited some of Willie’s paintings in the gallery at Old San Juan, and they had had very good reviews; he had even sold some of them. I hadn’t seen Mauricio for months, and just having him walk into the house, with his gray suede gloves, his perfumed goatee, and his colorful plaid handkerchief in his pocket, cheered me.

  We talked all afternoon. I told him about the strike and about Willie’s brutal beating. Manuel’s adherence to the Independentista cause had been a shock to all of us, I said. But his parading up and down Ponce de León Avenue with the strikers had created a scandal out of all proportion, and my neighbors were all gossiping about it. I was sick of them and was sorry I had ever invited them to my house. Mauricio patted my arm affectionately. “You should take a long trip, visit Paris, London, Rome. There’s so much beauty in the world, and life is still worth living. I’d love to be your escort; it would be an honor to accompany you,” he said, winking mischievously. I laughed and thanked him, but told him that would be impossible.

  Willie came and sat with us on the terrace. He was feeling better, he said to Mauricio. He told him about Petra’s death—which I was loath to mention—and about her strange wake. He had buried Elegguá’s effigy in Petra’s room, not because he believed in the rites of santería, but out of respect for her. Since Petra had spent most of her life in the cellar, he thought it was appropriate that Elegguá should be put to rest in the same place. He had taken the cardboard box full of Elegguá’s sacred toys to his room and put it away under his bed.

  Mauricio had always found Petra fascinating, and whenever he came to visit he asked Willie about her. His interest in Picasso, Modigliani, and other modern artists who had been influenced by African cultures made him curious about the rites of magic. Once he had asked Petra to show him Elegguá’s effigy, but Petra was offended at the suggestion. Mauricio had had to humor her, and bring her a box of chocolates so she would get over her annoyance. “Now that Petra’s gone, I’d love to see what the idol looks like,” Mauricio hinted. “We could all go down to the cellar and dig it up.” But I refused to humor him. “Petra prayed to Elegguá every day for many years,” I said. “S
ometimes I have more faith in him than in my own God.”

  Willie was still feeling weak and he decided not to go back to Pratt that fall, but to do his sophomore year at the University of Puerto Rico, where classes had already begun. He also asked Quintín for a part-time job at Gourmet Imports. He was very good with a computer—I had given him one as a birthday present when he turned sixteen—and he could write advertisements, put together jingles and ditties, and design ads for Gourmet’s products. Quintín agreed. He even gave him a secondhand 1975 Toyota which had belonged to one of his salesmen, so he could commute from the university to Gourmet Imports.

  Willie hadn’t said anything about Petra’s secret, and I thought it best not to bring up the subject. I wasn’t sure if he knew, and I was afraid he might resent his father for keeping him from inheriting what was legally his. I prayed he would take it all in stride, that his kind nature would keep him from any rash action, and I thought it a good idea that he work for Quintín. Perhaps some fences would be mended that way.

  We talked about Petra often. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Petra’s words before she passed away—‘Everything begins and ends in water,’” Willie said one evening when we were having dinner by ourselves on the terrace. Quintín was away on a trip and I had put a small table outside; we were enjoying the cool breeze that came up from the lagoon at sunset. “Maybe I had to become partially blind to understand what she meant. When I realized I might never be able to paint again, I cried so much I couldn’t believe the body could hold so much water. Tears, saliva, semen, blood—our bodies are mostly water.

  “Petra knew that water is love,” Willie went on. “Every time we wet our feet or wade into the sea, we touch other people, we share in their sadness and their joys. Because we live on an island there is no mass of mountains, no solid dike of matter to keep us from flowing out to others. Communication is possible, Mother. Through water, we can reach out and love our neighbors, try to understand them.” I wondered about all this philosophizing, unsure of what Willie was driving at.

  He was silent for a moment, and then he added softly: “Water permitted the Avilés family to travel from Morass to Alamares Lagoon in the first place,” he said. “After all, I was conceived in the swamp, isn’t that right, Mother? And it was in the mangroves that Carmelina Avilés fell into Father’s arms.”

  Willie’s question hung in the air. Now I knew why he had wanted to talk to me about water. It was his way of coming to Petra’s secret, of letting me know he knew.

  43

  Perla’s Gift

  THE DATE FOR THE PLEBISCITE was drawing near, and the whole island was preparing for it. The three parties—the New Progressive Party, the Popular Party, and the Independence Party—had intensified their campaigns. Television as well as the newspapers were full of political commentary, as the parties strove to explain their different positions in detail. Statehood and independence sympathizers both maintained that Puerto Rico was a colony of the United States—that only statehood or independence would put us at the helm of the island’s destiny. Commonwealthers declared that Puerto Rico’s status had been legally established and was even recognized by the United Nations.

  When the polls began to show that Statehood had only a slight edge, Quintín was visibly concerned. He would have liked the advantage to be larger. “If we win only by a slim margin, there’s bound to be a violent reaction,” he said. “The plebiscite is really a struggle between Statehood and Independence. If Independence wins, we’ll end up eating bananas and shooting each other down like pigeons, like our Caribbean neighbors.” The situation was volatile; anyone could see that trouble was brewing. With the difficulty Congress was having retaining English as the official language in the United States, I thought, letting a Spanish-speaking territory become a state would be like letting a fox into the chicken coop. But I didn’t dare say anything to Quintín.

  We still hadn’t heard from Manuel and the police had no clues as to his whereabouts. Every time I looked at his photograph, I cried. There was nothing I could do but mourn. By chance, Willie ran into his brother in Old San Juan one afternoon, and he told me about it. Manuel didn’t want Quintín to know; he made Willie promise he wouldn’t tell us. Willie was afraid of the police, and with good reason.

  “Are you all right?” Willie said, embracing his brother. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick.” Manuel’s greeting was warm. He had lost weight and his coal-black eyes stood out even more in his gaunt face. Thankfully, there were crowds of people in the street, so it was easy to escape notice. Willie asked Manuel to have a beer at a small bar nearby. They took a table at the back, an electric fan whirling slowly above their heads, and ordered hamburgers and Budweisers.

  “I don’t have an address,” Manuel said. “Every night I sleep at a different house. That’s the best way to keep the police from finding me. But things are going well for our cause; independence may stand a chance, after all.”

  Manuel sat in the shadows, looking attentively at his brother. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Why don’t you leave the AK 47 now, before it’s too late?” Willie asked. “They had no right to make you take part in the strike and insult Father.” Manuel laughed at his brother’s naïveté. “No one made me join the strike, kid; I organized the whole thing myself. We’re not children anymore. I’m a Puerto Rican and Father thinks he’s an American. He’d have us speaking English and forget we ever spoke Spanish. He thinks that way he could peddle his hams more efficiently on the mainland.”

  “You mustn’t talk like that about Father,” Willie reproached him. “We all have our faults—Father, too—but he loves you.”

  “I’m not being disrespectful toward Father!” Manuel replied, nettled by Willie’s words. “I’m doing exactly what he taught us when we were children. Remember how he used to say we had to be like the Conquistadors and not let anything stand in our way if we wanted to achieve something? That’s what I’m doing now. Only he wants statehood and I want independence.”

  When he saw Willie’s anguished expression, Manuel let up. He examined his brother’s swollen eye, the face that was still black and blue around the temple. “It’s just like them to do that. They never pick on the strong ones, only on the weak.”

  Willie took a swallow of beer and shifted around in his chair. He didn’t like his brother to think of him as weak. “Another thing,” Willie said. “I’m not going back to Pratt for now. I’m studying at the University of Puerto Rico and working with Father part-time. He’s given me your old office, the one with the moth-eaten tapestry of Valdeverdeja hanging on the wall.”

  Manuel put down his beer. “Has Father brainwashed you about carrying on the Mendizabal family tradition and all that crap? No one should inherit Gourmet Imports. All private property belongs to the state.”

  “Petra told me Father made a new will, and that he’s going to leave all his money to a foundation,” Willie said. “In any case, I don’t care. I’m not thinking of the business but of helping Father.” Manuel didn’t believe what Willie told him. He got up angrily, overturning his chair, and walked out of the bar. A few days later Willie found a note stuck to the windshield of his beat-up Toyota. “Gourmet Imports is a Fascist institution!” it read. “If you go on working there, you’ll be sorry.”

  Perla was Willie’s great consolation in these troubled times. Unlike Coral, she didn’t go in for ideologies; she hated it when Coral talked about politics. She came to see Willie every day at the house and told him about her nursing work, which she was more enthusiastic about than ever. She was visiting the slums, where there were many abandoned children and where drugs were a problem. “Boats from Colombia come at night and drop packages wrapped in plastic in the water when the current from Morass Lagoon is coming in,” Perla told him. “They float right up to the wooden huts lining the shore. The people there have lookouts who pick them up—there are waterproof flashlights in the plastic—and deliver them to the drug moguls. But some of it always t
rickles down. There are hundreds of drug addicts in Las Minas; getting high is almost a rite,” she added, shuddering. “They share the same spoon to mix the heroin with water, the same candle to heat it up, the same rubber band tied around the upper arm, the same needle to inject themselves.”

  There was a medical dispensary in the slum, and Perla was going there daily. She had a delicate constitution but a strong will. Like Doña Ermelinda, she wasn’t afraid of anything. She twisted her long black hair into a braid, put on a pair of beat-up Levi’s and a T-shirt, and walked fearlessly through the labyrinth of shacks. She helped out in any way she could, counseling patients on how to deal with addiction, on how to find moral support in meeting with other people who were also addicted. The saddest were the children. Sometimes a skeleton of a woman would walk into the dispensary carrying a baby in her arms, place the child on the floor, and walk out. “They leave them at the dispensary and never come back,” Perla told Willie with tears in her eyes.

  Willie began to visit Las Minas with Perla in search of abandoned children. “If I were old enough, I’d take this one home with me,” she said to Willie one day, holding up a black baby who was so thin he looked as if he had the bones of a sparrow. They found him in an abandoned shack, asleep under old newspapers. Willie’s heart went out to Perla. She was the only one who understood Petra’s message.

  Four days before the plebiscite, tragedy struck. Terrorism had been escalating on the island: a navy bus was blown up in Sábana Seca, killing two sailors and injuring nine others. Soon after, an ROTC vehicle was gunned down at the UPR campus. Governor Rodrigo Escalante swore he would find the culprits, and ordered the National Guard to comb the housing projects for Independentista suspects. Armed with machine guns and rifles, they were stationed at the entrance to the city’s slums, and would frisk anyone coming in or out. One day, Perla’s car broke down and she had to take the bus from San Juan to Las Minas. As she was getting out at the stop in Barrio Obrero, a shootout between a National Guard patrol and a crowd of slum dwellers erupted. Perla was hit in the head and was killed instantly.