The fruit stands behind her now, Yolanda approaches a compound very like her family’s in the capital. A high concrete wall continues for about a quarter of a mile. A guard rises to his post beyond an iron grillwork gate. He seems—glimpsed through the flowering bars—a man locked in a strangely gorgeous prison. Beyond him up the shady driveway is a three-story country house, a wide verandah all the way around it. Parked at the door is a chocolate brown Mercedes. Perhaps the owners have come up to their country home to avoid the troubles in the capital. They are probably relatives. The dozen rich families have intermarried so many times that family trees are tangles of roots. In fact, her aunts have given her a list of names of uncles and aunts and cousins she might call on along her way. By each name is a capsule description of what Yolanda might remember of that relative: the one with the kidney bean swimming pool, the fat one, the one who was an ambassador. Before she even left the compound, Yolanda put the list away in the glove compartment. She is going to be just fine on her own.
A small village spreads out before her—ALTAMIRA, say the rippling letters on the corrugated tin roof of the first house. A little cluster of houses on either side of the road, Altamira is just the place to stretch her legs before what she has heard is a steep and slightly (her aunts warned “very”) dangerous descent to the coast. Yolanda pulls up at a cantina, its thatched roof held up by several posts, its floor poured cement, and in its very center, a lone picnic table over which a swarm of flies hover.
Tacked to one of the central posts is a yellowing poster for Palmolive soap. A creamy, blond woman luxuriates under a refreshing shower, her head thrown back in seeming ecstasy, her mouth opened in a wordless cry.
“¡Buenas!” Yolanda calls out.
An old woman emerges from a shack behind the cantina, buttoning up a torn housedress. She is followed closely by a little boy, who keeps ducking behind her whenever Yolanda smiles at him. Asking his name drives him further into the folds of the old woman’s skirt.
“You must excuse him, doña,” the woman apologizes. “He’s not used to being among people.” People with money who drive through Altamira to the beach resorts on the north coast, she means. “Your name,” the old woman repeats, as if Yolanda hasn’t asked him in Spanish. The little boy mumbles at the ground. “Speak up!” the old woman scolds, but her voice betrays pride when she speaks up for him. “This little know-nothing is Jose Duarte, Sanchez y Mella.”
Yolanda laughs. A lot of names for such a little boy—the surnames of the country’s three liberators!
“Can I serve the doña in any way?” the old woman asks.
“¡Un refresco! ¡Una Coca Cola!” By the pride in her voice, Yolanda understands the old woman wants to treat her to the best on her menu.
“I’ll tell you what I would like.” Yolanda gives the tree line beyond the old woman’s shack a glance. “Are there any guavas around?”
The old woman’s face scrunches up. “¡Guayabas!” she murmurs, and thinks to herself a second. “Why, they grow all around, doña. But I can’t say as I’ve seen any lately.”
“With your permission—” José Duarte has joined a group of little boys who have come out of nowhere and are milling around the car, boasting how many automobiles they have ridden in. At Yolanda’s mention of guavas, he springs forward, pointing across the road towards the summit of the western hills. “I know where there’s a whole grove of ripe ones.” Behind him, his little companions nod.
“Go on, then!” His grandmother stamps her foot as if she were scatting an animal. “Get the doña some.”
A few boys dash across the road and disappear up a steep path on the hillside, but before Jose can follow, Yolanda calls him back. She wants to go along too. The little boy looks towards his grandmother, unsure of what to think. The old woman shakes her head. The doña will get hot, her nice clothes will get all dirty. Jose will bring the doña as many guavas as she is wanting.
“But they taste so much better when you’ve picked them yourself.” Yolanda hears the edge in her voice. The old woman has turned into the long arm of her family.
The few boys who have stayed behind with José have again congregated around the car. Each one claims to be guarding it for the doña. It occurs to Yolanda that there is a way to make this a treat all the way around. “What do you say we take the car?” The little boys cheer.
Now that is not a bad idea, the old woman agrees. If the doña insists on going, she can take that dirt road up ahead and then cross over onto the road that is paved all the way to the coffee barns. The old woman points south in the direction of the big house. Many workers take that shortcut to work.
They pile into the car, half a dozen little boys in the back, and José as co-pilot in the passenger seat beside Yolanda. They turn onto a bumpy road off the highway, which grows bumpier and bumpier as it climbs up into wilder, more desolate country. Branches scrape the sides and pebbles pelt the underside of the car. Yolanda wants to turn back, but there is no room. Finally, with a great snapping of twigs and thrashing of branches across the windshield, as if the countryside is loath to release them, the car bursts forth onto smooth pavement and the light of day. On either side of the road are groves of guava trees. The boys who have gone ahead on foot are already pulling down branches and shaking loose a rain of guavas.
Yolanda eats several right on the spot, relishing the slightly bumpy feel of the skin in her hand, devouring the crunchy, sweet white meat. The boys watch her.
The group scatters to harvest the guavas. Yolanda and Jose, partners, wander far from the path that cuts through the grove. Soon they are bent almost double to avoid getting entangled in the thick canopy of branches overhead. Each addition to Yolanda’s beach basket causes a spill from the stash already piled high above the brim.
The way back seems much longer than the way there. Yolanda begins to worry that they are lost, and then, the way worry sprouts worry, it strikes her that they haven’t heard or seen the other boys in quite a while. The latticework of branches reveals glimmers of a fading sky. The image of the guard in his elaborate flowering prison flashes through her head. The rustling leaves of the guava trees echo the warnings of her old aunts: you will get lost, you will get kidnapped, you will get raped, you will get killed.
Just ahead, the thicket of guava branches clears, and there is the footpath, and beyond, the gratifying sight of the car still on the side of the road. It is a pleasure to stand upright again. Jose rests his burden on the ground and straightens his back to full measure. Yolanda looks up at the sky. The sun is low on the western horizon.
“The others must have gone to gather kindling,” Jose observes.
Yolanda glances at her watch—it is past six o’clock. At this rate, she will never make the north coast by nightfall. She hurries Jose back to the car, where they find a heap of guavas the other boys left behind on the shoulder of the road. Enough guavas to appease even the greediest Island santo for life!
They pack the trunk quickly, and climb in, but the car has not gone a foot before it lurches forward with a horrible hobble. Yolanda closes her eyes and lays her head down on the wheel, then glances over at Jose. His eyes are searching the inside of the car for a clue as to what could have happened. This child won’t know how to change a flat tire either.
Soon the sun will set and night will fall swiftly, no lingering dusk as in the States. She explains to Jose that they have a flat tire and must go back down the road to the big house. Whoever tends to the brown Mercedes will surely know how to change a tire.
“With your permission,” Jose offers. The doña can just wait in the car, and he will be back in no time with someone from the Miranda place.
Miranda, Miranda…. Yolanda leans over and gets her aunt’s list out of the glove compartment, and sure enough, there they are. Tía Marina y Tio Alejandro Miranda—Altos de Altamira. A note elaborates that Tio Alejandro was the one who used to own English saddle horses and taught you four girls to ride. “All right,” she says to the
boy. “I’ll tell you what.” She points to her watch. “If you’re back by the time this hand is over here, I’ll give you”—she holds up one finger—“a dollar.” The boy’s mouth falls open. In no time, he has shot out of his side of the car and is headed at a run toward the Miranda place. Yolanda climbs out as well and walks down a pace, until the boy has disappeared in one of the turnings of the road.
From the footpath that cuts through the grove on the opposite side of the road, she hears the sound of branches being thrust aside, twigs snapping underfoot. Two men, one short and dark, and the other slender and light-skinned, emerge. They wear ragged work clothes stained with patches of sweat; their faces are drawn. Machetes hang from their belts.
The men’s faces snap awake at the sight of her. Then they look beyond her at the car. The darker man speaks first. “Yours?”
“Is there some problem?” he speaks up again. The taller one is looking her up and down with interest. They are now both in front of her on the road, blocking any escape. Both—she has sized them up as well—are strong and quite capable of catching her if she makes a run for it. Not that she can move, for her legs seem suddenly to have been hammered into the ground beneath her. She considers explaining that she is just out for a drive before dinner at the big house, so that these men will think someone knows where she is, someone will come looking for her if they try to carry her off. But her tongue feels as if it has been stuffed in her mouth like a rag to keep her quiet.
The two men exchange a look—it seems to Yolanda—of collusion.
Then the shorter, darker one speaks up again. “Senorita, are you all right?” He peers at her. He is a short man, no taller than Yolanda, but he gives the impression of being quite large, for he is broad and solid, like something not yet completely carved out of a piece of wood. His companion is slim and tall and of a rich honey-brown color that matches his honey-brown eyes. Anywhere else, Yolanda would find him extremely attractive, but here on a lonely road, with the sky growing darker by seconds, his good looks seem dangerous, a lure to catch her off her guard.
“Can we help you?” the shorter man repeats.
The handsome one smiles knowingly. Two long, deep dimples appear like gashes on either side of his mouth. “Americana,” he says to the darker man, pointing to the car. “No comprende.”
The darker man narrows his eyes and studies Yolanda a moment. “¡Americana!” he asks her, as if not quite sure what to make of her.
She has been too frightened to carry out any strategy, but now a road is opening before her. She clasps her hands on her chest—she can feel her pounding heart—and nods. Then, as if the admission itself loosens her tongue, she begins to speak, English, a few words, of apology at first, then a great flood of explanation: how it happens that she is on a back road by herself, her craving for guavas, having never learned to change a flat. The two men stare at her, uncomprehending, rendered docile by her gibberish. Only when she mentions the name Miranda do their eyes light up with respect. She is saved!
Yolanda makes the motions of pumping. The darker man looks at his companion, who shrugs, baffled as well. Yolanda waves for them to follow her. And as if after dragging up roots, she has finally managed to yank them free of the soil they have clung to, she finds she can move her own feet toward the car.
The small group stands staring at the sagging tire a moment, the two men kicking at it as if punishing it for having failed the seňorita. They squat by the passenger’s side, conversing in low tones. Yolanda leads the men to the rear of the car, where they lift the spare out of its sunken nest—then set to work fitting the interlocking pieces of the jack, unpacking the tools from the deeper hollows of the trunk. They lay their machetes down on the side of the road, out of the way. Above them, the sky is purple with twilight. The sun breaks on the hilltops, spilling its crimson yolk.
Once the flat has been replaced with the spare, the two men lift the deflated tire into the trunk and put away the tools. They hand Yolanda her keys.
“I’d like to give you something,” she begins, but the English words are hollow on her tongue. She rummages in her purse and draws out a sheaf of bills, rolls them up and offers them to the men.
The shorter man holds up his hand. Yolanda can see where he has scraped his hand on the pavement and blood has dried dark streaks on his palm. “No, no, seňonta. Nuestro placer.”
Yolanda turns to the taller one. “Please,” she says, urging the bills on him. But he too looks down at the ground—Iluminada’s gesture, José’s gesture. Quickly, she stuffs the bills in his pocket.
The two men pick up their machetes and raise them to their shoulders like soldiers their guns. The tall man motions towards the big house. “Directo, Mirandas,” He enunciates the words carefully. Yolanda looks in the direction of his hand. In the faint light of what is left of day, she can barely make out the road ahead. It is as if the guava grove has grown into the road and woven its matt of branches tightly in all directions.
She reaches for each man’s hand to shake. The shorter man holds his back at first, as if not wanting to dirty her hand, but finally, after wiping it on the side of his pants, he gives it to Yolanda. The skin feels rough and dry like the bark of trees.
Yolanda climbs into the car while the two men wait a moment on the shoulder to see if the tire will hold. She eases out onto the pavement and makes her way slowly down the road. When she looks for them in her rearview mirror, they have disappeared into the darkness of the guava grove.
Ahead, her lights catch the figure of a small boy. Yolanda leans over and opens the door for him. The overhead light comes on; the boy’s face is working back tears. He is cradling an arm. “The guardia hit me. He said I was telling stories. No dominicana with a car would be out at this hour getting guayabas.”
“Don’t you worry, Jose.” Yolanda pats the boy. She can feel the bony shoulder through the thin fabric of his shirt. “You can still have your dollar. You did your part.”
But his shame seems to obscure any pleasure he might feel in her offer. Yolanda tries to distract him by asking what he will buy with his money, what he most craves, thinking that on a subsequent visit, she might bring him his own little an-tojo. But Jose Duarte, Sanchez y Mella says nothing, except a mumbled gracias when she lets him off at the cantina with several more than his promised dollar.
In the glow of the headlights, Yolanda makes out the figure of the old woman in the black square of her doorway, waving goodbye. And above the picnic table on a near post, the Palmolive woman’s skin gleams a rich white; her head is still thrown back, her mouth still opened as if she is calling someone over a great distance.
The Kiss
Sofia
Even after they’d been married and had their own families and often couldn’t make it for other occasions, the four daughters always came home for their father’s birthday. They would gather together, without husbands, would-be husbands, or bring-home work. For this too was part of the tradition: the daughters came home alone. The apartment was too small for everyone, the father argued. Surely their husbands could spare them for one overnight?
The husbands would just as soon have not gone to their in-laws, but they felt annoyed at the father’s strutting. “When’s he going to realize you’ve grown up? You sleep with us!”
“He’s almost seventy, for God’s sake!” the daughters said, defending the father. They were passionate women, but their devotions were like roots; they were sunk into the past towards the old man.
So for one night every November the daughters turned back into their father’s girls. In the cramped living room, surrounded by the dark oversized furniture from the old house they grew up in, they were children again in a smaller, simpler version of the world. There was the prodigal scene at the door. The father opened his arms wide and welcomed them in his broken English: “This is your home, and never you should forget it.” Inside, the mother fussed at them—their sloppy clothes; their long, loose hair; their looking tired, too skinny, too m
ade up, and so on.
After a few glasses of wine, the father started in on what should be done if he did not live to see his next birthday. “Come on, Papi,” his daughters coaxed him, as if it were a modesty of his, to perish, and they had to talk him into staying alive. After his cake and candles, the father distributed bulky envelopes that felt as if they were padded, and they were, no less than several hundreds in bills, tens and twenties and fives, all arranged to face the same way, the top one signed with the father’s name, branding them his. Why not checks? the daughters would wonder later, gossiping together in the bedroom, counting their money to make sure the father wasn’t playing favorites. Was there some illegality that the father stashed such sums away? Was he—none of the daughters really believed this, but to contemplate it was a wonderful little explosion in their heads—was he maybe dealing drugs or doing abortions in his office?
At the table there was always the pretense of trying to give the envelopes back. “No, no, Papi, it’s your birthday, after all.”
The father told them there was plenty more where that had come from. The revolution in the old country had failed. Most of his comrades had been killed or bought off. He had escaped to this country. And now it was every man for himself, so what he made was for his girls. The father never gave his daughters money when their husbands were around. “They might receive the wrong idea,” the father once said, and although none of the daughters knew specifically what the father meant, they all understood what he was saying to them: Don’t bring the men home for my birthday.
But this year, for his seventieth birthday, the youngest daughter, Sofia, wanted the celebration at her house. Her son had been born that summer, and she did not want to be traveling in November with a four-month-old and her little girl. And yet, she, of all the daughters, did not want to be the absent one because for the first time since she’d run off with her husband six years ago, she and her father were on speaking terms. In fact, the old man had been out to see her—or really to see his grandson—twice. It was a big deal that Sofia had had a son. He was the first male born into the family in two generations. In fact, the baby was to be named for the grandfather—Carlos—and his middle name was to be Sofia’s maiden name, and so, what the old man had never hoped for with his “harem of four girls,” as he liked to joke, his own name was to be kept going in this new country!