Firefly Summer (15 page)

“Only when Teresa is away at school and Manolo has gone back to his aunt in Cayey,” said Ramón.

Antonio kept his thoughts to himself. He knew Ramón was right. He could always go back to the
cartilla
after the summer, when there was no one in the house but Grandmother and Doña Anita. But when Teresa came back and Manolo returned, he had little time then for it.

“The fact is,” said Esteban, as he listened to Ramón, “that Antonio is acting in exactly the same way you did when you were his age. Remember how you used to follow me about the place? And how Don Rodrigo always answered my special call for you by appearing at the door with his cigar in his mouth? Long before he had time to shake the ashes off, I had started running downhill.”

Antonio began to laugh. The idea of Esteban running away from Don Rodrigo seemed ridiculous to him.

“I don't think you cared much for the
cartilla
,” said Esteban.

“You had to read the
cartilla
, too?” asked Antonio.

“Read it? Wait until Grandmother starts drilling her
cuatro ramas
.”

“What's that?”

“Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, four branches which she says lead up to the tree of knowledge.”

“Will I have to learn them, too?”

“You ask Teresa,” said Ramón.

The sound of the conch shell came over the hill.

“Lunch,” said Antonio, jumping up and starting to run towards the house.

“That's the only sound that brings him home from wherever he may be,” said Ramón, watching him go.

“I guess I better go, too.”

Esteban picked up his sack of potatoes, and the two walked as far as the foot of the hill. “
Adiós
, Ramón Santiago,” he said. “I hope Lucía has a good lunch.”

Ramón waved back as he ran up the hill. When he reached the house, he found Grandmother showing the girls how to transfer the piece of lace they had finished to the beginning of the pattern.

“Come and see,” called Teresa, “we have a whole pattern done, and it looks as good as Grandmother's.”

“Almost,” he corrected her.

“Almost?” said Mercedes. “What do you think, Grandmother? Isn't it just as good as yours?”

“Just as good as the very first I made,” she answered. “But by next summer, no one will be able to tell the difference, not me.”

When they went in for lunch, the mail was on the table. Mercedes went through it quickly, looking for a letter from her father. “Why doesn't he write?” she said, putting the letters down again.

“He does not trust himself with the surprise,” Don Rodrigo said. “A letter might give him away.”

“I wonder what it will be?” said Mercedes, helping herself to a platter of fried ripe plantains Lucía had set near her.

“Remember what Sixta said, Mercedes. Wait without too much planning, then the surprise will be a real one.” Teresa imitated Sixta's voice.

“You only quote her in fun,” said Mercedes. “Since we found the Ayala family, you have lost interest in the surprise. Not even Ramón talks about it anymore. I alone care now.”

“We all care,” said Doña Anita. “Do you think Lucio would have written Rodrigo if he had meant the surprise just for you?”

“I agree with Sixta,” Grandmother ventured to say. “Regardless of your feelings, Mercedes, the surprise will lose its interest to all of us if we do nothing but wonder all day about it.”

“I do think more about it than I like to talk,” said Teresa. “I am doing what Sixta suggested.
There are all kinds of surprises to bring home when one has gone all over the island practically.”

Lucía came to clear the table.

“I have brought up the case of glass jars, Grandmother,” she said.

“Good,” said Grandmother. “The girls can start washing them now. Is that Antonio I heard about the kitchen? Have him help with the drying. Unless this work is finished today, there won't be guava picking tomorrow.”

There were other chores around the house the girls would much rather do, but when they remembered the picnic that went with picking guavas, washing dusty glasses did not seem to matter at all. They followed Lucía to the kitchen, where she prepared two basins for them: one with broken pieces of soap and another with clear water.

Teresa washed, Mercedes rinsed and Antonio dried.

Ramón stayed away from the fields and gave the girls a hand. He carried the glass jars to the table near the charcoal stove, where they would be within Grandmother's reach. Then he rinsed the large pieces of cheesecloth used to pass the guava pulp through, and hung them to dry. When he finished, he measured the sugar and set it on Grandmother's table. He even brought in the large kettles where the guavas were to be boiled, and scrubbed them clean. Everything was ready now. Nothing was
missing but the guavas, and those they would bring tomorrow after they had their picnic.

“Let's go and ask Sixta to come along with us,” said Teresa.

“I doubt if she'll go,” said Grandmother. “I hear she has a new order of handkerchieves from Cidra, larger than she has ever had from any other place. But try, a day away from work will do her good.”

“Come, let us try anyhow, Mercedes,” said Teresa, racing out of the house.

“Ramón Santiago!” It was Don Rodrigo calling from the other side of the house.

Ramón smiled at the sound of his complete name and went to his call.

The next day, Doña Anita was up at six o'clock, ready to fix the lunch basket. It was unusually hot for so early in the morning, and she opened the kitchen door and stopped it with a large stone to let more air in.

Lucía had left pieces of chicken she fried for the children wrapped in wax paper on the table. Next to it were two boxes of crackers and a jar of chopped ham.

Doña Anita began to make the sandwiches, adding chopped green peppers to the ham, the way Teresa liked them. Cheese, bananas and oranges went into the basket, along with some sweet-potato candy left over from dessert. After the basket was fixed, she folded a towel over it and put the basket on the table. Beads of perspiration covered her brow. She had been working faster than she had realized. She heard footsteps in the dining room. It was Grandmother.

“Why, Anita, you got here before I did. Why didn't you let me do the sandwiches?”

“I wish I had. It is so hot, my head is aching. I wonder if we ought to let the girls go out. There's bound to be rain sooner or later.”

They looked out of the door at the faraway hills.

“Nonsense,” said Grandmother, “this is regular August weather. Let the girls take the large straw hats and come back as soon as they eat their lunch.”

“There's Antonio and Lucía coming up the hill. What do you suppose is keeping the girls,
Mamá
?”

“Nothing is keeping us. Here we are,” said Teresa as she came into the kitchen followed by Mercedes and Ramón. “I don't want any breakfast,
Mamá
. Why can't we leave right now?”

“
Buenos días
,” said Lucía and Antonio.

“What is that you are carrying, Antonio?” asked Mercedes, looking at the bundle under his arm.

“It's a sack,” he said. “I want to fill it with guavas.”

“And who is going to help you carry it? Mercedes will have to help me with the basket,” said Teresa, “and you are supposed to help Ramón with his.”

“I can bring the basket alone,” said Ramón, lifting the lunch basket to try it's weight. We'll see if Antonio can bring his sack alone, too.”

While they ate their breakfast, Grandmother stood at the door mopping her forehead. “How about
waiting until tomorrow for the guavas?” she said. “There is rain in the air.”

“No, please, Grandmother,” pleaded Teresa. “If it rains, it will only be a summer shower.”

“All right, then go and get the straw hats, and come back as soon as possible from the grove,” said Grandmother.

Ramón picked up the lunch basket and Antonio his sack, and they followed after the girls.

“Keep away from the wire fences, Antonio,” called his mother. “Last year you left part of your trousers along with some of your skin as well.”

The guava grove was on the other side of the cow path. Don Rodrigo had circled it with rows and rows of barbed wire to keep the cows away. It was the only guava grove at the
finca
, but it yielded a large crop.

The children had not walked very far when they began to feel the heat. The girls took off their hats and fanned their faces.

“I'm thirsty,” said Antonio.

“Give him an orange,” said Teresa. “We can sit here while he eats it.”

“He can have the orange,” said Ramón, “but we won't sit. If we do, we'll never get to the grove until late at the rate you're walking.”

On the way downhill, they met Benito and Valentín.

“Better take it easy,” they said. “It's almost too hot to be picking guavas, and it looks like a storm is coming.”

When they finally reached the grove, Ramón looked for a shady place and began to empty the lunch basket.

No amount of heat ever lessened Antonio's appetite, and he sat down ready to eat his share.

“Come, Antonio,” said Teresa. “We must first pick the guavas.”

Reluctantly, he picked up his sack and followed her to where the bushes were lowest.

Teresa and Mercedes placed their basket between them and began to work. Ramón chose the higher trees where the guavas were larger.

“How is your sack coming along, Antonio?” he called after a while.

He turned around expecting to find him working close to the girls, but Antonio was not there.

“Where did he go, Teresa?”

“I don't know, he was here a minute ago. Antonio!” she called.

“Antonio!” called Ramón, but no one answered.

They went back to where the lunch was left. Maybe he had decided to eat, after all. Maybe the heat was too much for him, and he had decided to go home. But Antonio was not there either.

“It's no use,” said Ramón. “Stay here, and I'll go around the grove. He must be somewhere near.”

He looked behind some of the bushes for fear Antonio might be staging one of his hide and seek games. Only ripe guavas dropped from the bushes as he brushed against them. Ramón came close to one of the wire fences, and something moved in the thick underbrush. What could it be? The grove was wired so close that no cow could get through, and he knew there weren't any wild animals or snakes at the
finca
. Probably birds, he thought, noticing the amount of pecked guavas on the ground. Just then the branches shook briskly and a shower of fruit came tumbling down.

“There,” said a voice, “now I have enough.”

“Antonio,” called Ramón, recognizing his voice. He parted the branches and looked in. Stretched on the ground comfortably filling his sack was Antonio.

“Antonio,” called Ramón, recognizing his voice. He parted the branches and looked in. Stretched on the ground comfortably filling his sack was Antonio.

“Look, Ramón,” he cried joyfully, “my sack is full already.” He crawled out pulling the sack behind him.

“I have seen enough,” Ramón said. “Come along now.”

When they joined the girls, Antonio was in high spirits.

“I have finished,” he said. “Now I can eat.”

“Eat, eat,” said Teresa. “Is there anything else you ever think of?” She fanned her face and dried
her forehead. The heat seemed to be rising by the minute.

“We were worried about you,” said Mercedes. “Why did you go away?”

“Worried? Why?”

“Never mind,” said Ramón, trying to compromise. “Come and help me fill my basket. We'll work near each other where the branches are low.”

They all resumed their work and for a while nothing but the muffled sound of the guavas falling into the baskets was heard.

Ramón's shirt was so wet that it stuck to his body.

“Let's not pick any more,” he said. “It's much too hot.”

They left their baskets under the branches and went back to where the lunch was. Mercedes and Teresa stretched out on the grass, but the heat coming from the earth made them jump to their feet again.

“Open the sandwiches, Mercedes,” said Ramón, stretching the towel on the grass as a tablecloth.

Teresa opened the boxes of crackers and began to cut slices of cheese to put on them.

By the time the lunch was spread out, a rare yellow hue had come over the field, as if a colored glass had been suddenly put before the sun. A sharp gust of wind sent the paper wrappers high into the air.

Ramón remembered Grandmother's warning. It was going to rain after all.

Another gust of wind blew over them with such force that it staggered Antonio.

“We better go,” said Ramón.

“Go?” said Antonio. “I thought we were going to eat.”

Ramón ran to where his basket was, emptied the fruit and brought it back. “Help me put the food back in,” he told the girls. “We will eat at home.”

He had scarcely finished his remark when three sharp blasts sounded in the air. Ramón stood still, fear written all over his face.

It was the sign that a hurricane had been announced.

Teresa reached for Mercedes, and they both started to run across the fields towards home.

Ramón reached for Antonio, but he wriggled out of his hand and ran back to the place where he had left his sack.

“My guavas, I want my guavas,” he cried.

Ramón, certain that Antonio did not know what the blasts meant, ran after him as he bent to pick up the sack of guavas. Ramón pulled him away, but Antonio would not let go, so he snatched the sack out of his hands, flung it over his shoulders and ran across the fields, dragging Antonio along.