Eccentric Neighborhood (45 page)

“I’m sorry, Father. I know you’re in pain. But you must look ahead, you can’t look back. You’re free now, you’ll go on being a wonderful governor. And you’ll never be alone, because I’ll always be with you!” Father turned and looked at me in astonishment.

“You could never take her place,” he said in a grieving voice. “I loved her more than my life. She was my inspiration in everything.”

I got up from the piano bench, tears streaming down my face, and went home.

Mother’s death cast a pall over Father that was so overwhelming he was unable to shake it off by the time of the election campaign two years later. He had lost his formidable élan vital, that endless fountain of energy that had made everything seem possible.

A few months after his defeat in 1972, Father had a baby Bechstein delivered to my house as a birthday present. He was almost inconsolably lonely, he said, and wanted to come by to practice once in a while after he left office. When I saw the movers carrying the piano out of the truck and bringing it through my front door, I didn’t say anything. I was grateful for Father’s magnificent present and wanted to help him. I knew how important music was to him, and that there was nothing sadder than playing for an empty house. But my heart was tight with fear.

Ricardo and I had been separated for three years, and while it took some time, I had begun to date different men. They telephoned often and sometimes came to visit in the evening. But now my house was flooded by Beethoven’s
Appassionata
, Debussy’s
Clair de Lune
, Chopin’s mazurkas and études, the same music Father had played for Mother. Word got around that the ex-governor came to visit me every afternoon, and my telephone soon stopped ringing. If someone approached the house, the minute they heard Father’s energetic pounding on the keyboard, they stealthily got back in their cars and drove away.

I grew so angry at Father I couldn’t breathe. I called the piano showroom and asked for the owner. When he came to the phone, I was in a fury. “Come and take this piano away right now!” I said. “If you don’t, I’ll have it carried out into the garden, open the lid, and leave it there until the rain makes the strings burst and washes the ghosts away!” The owner must have thought I was crazy. The piano movers arrived within an hour, carried the Bechstein out of the house, and took off with it as fast as they could.

When Father came by the house the next day, he was amazed that the piano wasn’t there. He looked at me in dismay. “Where’s the piano?”

“I sent it back to the store, Father,” I answered, holding back the tears. “The little green felt-covered hammers that look like tiny birds were pecking away at my heart and I couldn’t stand the pain.” Father didn’t say a word. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and he turned quietly away and went back to his house. What was there to say after so many years of not saying what we really felt?

I had no way of knowing that Mother’s death would affect me so deeply. I began to have a recurring nightmare: I would be sitting in a chair watching Mrs. Gómez give Mother her last bath. All of a sudden Mrs. Gómez would turn Mother’s body over and fresh blood would again pour from her mouth. I would wake in terror, trying to understand what the dream meant, but I didn’t have an inkling.

Eventually the nightmares stopped and things went back to normal. With the money I inherited from Clarissa, my life changed radically. I got up the courage to ask Ricardo for a divorce, which he didn’t contest. Time cools even the most intractable tempers and Ricardo wanted his independence as much as I wanted mine.

With Mother’s money, I bought a house of my own and moved into it with my children. A few years later, when they were old enough to look after themselves and to leave under the care of a nanny, I went back to the university and finished my doctorate. Soon I was teaching to my heart’s content. Mother’s passing had made possible for me what she had wanted for herself when she was young: a career that would lead to self-respect and economic independence. Ironically, that freedom came at her expense.

I dreamed about Mother one last time. We were crossing Río Loco and the family’s temperamental Pontiac had stalled on us again. The river was rushing past, but instead of dogs, pigs, and goats being pulled along by the murky rapids I saw Abuela Valeria, Abuela Adela, Tía Lakhmé, Tía Dido, Tía Artemisa, Tía Amparo, all swimming desperately against the current. Clarissa and I sat safely inside the Pontiac, dressed in our Sunday best. She took a dollar out of her purse, rolled down the window just enough so she could wave the bill at the men on the riverbank, who soon came and pulled us out. And as we drove away I could hear through the open window the voices of those I could no longer see, but whose stories I could not have dreamed.

Rosario Ferré was born in Puerto Rico, where her father served as governor. She holds a doctorate in Spanish from the University of Maryland. She is best known for her novels and short stories. Her literary career began with the publication of the controversial literary journal
Zona
.
Carga y Descarga
in 1972, and her first short story collection,
The Youngest Doll
, was published in 1976. She has been a faculty member at the University of Puerto Rico, Rutgers University, and Johns Hopkins University. In 1992, Ferré was awarded the Liberatur Prix award at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the German translation of her novel
Sweet Diamond Dust
. She was a finalist for the National Book Award for her novel
The House on the Lagoon
in 1995. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Brown University and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in creative arts. She was also the recipient of the prestigious Medal for Literature of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 2009. Rosario Ferré lives in Puerto Rico with her family.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1998 by Rosario Ferré

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4804-8177-0

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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