

HECTOR

By

Richard F. DeCrescenzo, Jr.

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Richard F. DeCrescenzo, Jr. on Smashwords

HECTOR

Copyright 2012 Richard F. DeCrescenzo, Jr.

For Nancy

Hector came to the office every day. Sometimes he would come in the morning but most often he would come after he had seen that most of us were back from lunch. He waited, and we could see him waiting on the other side of the street under the alcove of the now abandoned Western Union office. He waited, and none of us could figure out why, or what exactly kept him from walking straight to us and getting it over with. Theories abounded, as one might expect, but there was not one in the office which could explain his patterns, or lack of patterns. Hector came to us from somewhere, made his plea and then he left. At times it seemed as though he had left before he had walked through the door.

I did not meet Hector for the first month that I spent in Hartford. My activities at work kept me from the front of the building until I could arrange my material and begin my day. To the other people in the office I was somewhat of a threat: I had come from far away for reasons they were not privy to, and I was constantly asking for assistance in finding one file or another.

I believe that they must have thought that I was from the government. Fear, I remember thinking, has a funny way of making people act suspiciously. And even though I was not in a position to question the activities of the other people in the office, I could not resist inquiring about Hector once I had seen him repeat his plea every day for the first two weeks of many I spent in the vicinity of the front office. I wanted to know what this poor man wanted and why he had not gotten it. I started where Hector started each day—the receptionist.

Two weeks had passed since I had first laid eyes on Hector and it had become steadily colder with each passing day. The cold, I was told back at the home office in Florida, would not be as bad as I might think. I would get used to it. And the reception desk to which Hector proceeded each day was set far enough inside the building. The receptionist, Susan, sat behind this desk each day and stared out toward the street. But she did not stare, or at least I do not think she stared, in anticipation of Hector's daily visit; no, I think that she had, like the others who encountered him over the years, grown so used to seeing him that they did not find him anymore out of place than the snow or the cold wind of winter. Nevertheless, because I was not accustomed to the visits or the cold of winter, I naturally became interested in the man. Susan, because she had to hear Hector's first words before passing him on to whomever it was she thought he wanted to see, knew him as well as anyone I was likely to talk to. I asked her what it was the man wanted, and her answer was simple: "He wants the impossible." She said this without looking at me, and it did not seem as though she intended to explain what she meant.

Hector had just walked past her desk and toward the street he passed slowly with the same ghostly gait one would expect from a man headed to the gallows.

I could not understand why a man would come to an insurance office each day only to leave with the same forlorn expression and hopeless demeanor of the day before. It was almost comical—who could he be talking to, and why did he fail to get what he wanted? What did he hope for? I wanted to grab the man and demand to know what it was he was after, but as anyone who has worked in an office knows, this is not done. But I was to get close to him. My work took me slowly to the front of the building, and the atmosphere, the degree to which I was feared and mistrusted, lessened to a point where I was treated with enough openness so that an inquiry into the case of this strange man would not arouse a great degree of attention.

Susan accepted my invitation to lunch. We walked in the snow to a small cafe around the corner from the office and waited in a puddle of melted snow and salt until there was a vacant table in the smoking section. Susan smoked constantly and the idea of sitting through a meal in such an atmosphere made me think about the need for tougher anti-smoking regulations. We sat at a table to the far end of the room and we were at a window that afforded a view of the street I thought Hector might walk down on his way to our office. Susan lit another cigarette and asked me why I have been inching my way through the files toward the front of the office.

"Are you looking for a particular file," she asked. "I could help you, you know. I know where everything is."

"I'm pretending to work," I said, "so I can get closer to you."

Susan blushed and looked down. The cigarette curled smoke up through her light brown hair and looked as though it had set her face on fire. She jerked her head back up and to the side in a way that says, "Yes, I am pretty."

"C'mon," she said, "why are you really looking through every file in the office?"

"It's really not very interesting."

"Are you investigating someone?'

"No. That would be interesting. I'm doing research."

"Is that all? Then how come nobody knows why you are here?"

"Some people know. But I want to ask you something that I think is more interesting."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Like why that man, Hector, comes to the office every day."

"I told you, he wants the impossible."

"And what might that be?"

"He wants a policy."

"Why is that impossible?" I asked. "Why don't we just give him a policy? Then, when he doesn't pay, we drop him."

"Because he doesn't want it for himself. He wants medical coverage for some girl."

"So?"

"So he won't bring her for a physical and he doesn't have her medical records."

"And he comes each day knowing what the answer will be?" I asked.

"That's right. Every day for three straight years. And every day I send him to Julie."

"And she sends him on his way."

"That's right."

We finished lunch and went back to work. I had not gotten as far as I had hoped, and when I left for home at the end of the day, I felt as though I knew less now than before. Hector, or this ghost we called Hector, was a frustration. Through Susan I hoped I would be able to get a reasonable explanation to the man. Perhaps he was a neighborhood representative of some kind, or a night custodian who, for one reason or another, saw fit to visit his work place during the day. I did not expect to hear that he had been paying the office these visits for three straight years. Each day he came without fail, stayed for about the same amount of time, then went on his way. Each day he left with the same forlorn expression with which he had entered. And each day I waited for him.

When I arrived home on the evening after I had spoken to Susan I, for the first time, could not get the picture of Hector's face out of my mind. The drive home had taken forever, and the snow started to fall again. The unpredictable nature of the Connecticut weather started to affect the way I felt; it was, to say the least, a depressing season to get to learn an unfamiliar region. I began to feel as I imagined Hector to feel. I pictured our faces side by side and our bodies leaned forward toward a sun that did not shine for us as it had before.

We stood, in my mind, as two who did not know where to turn. I, like Hector, went to the same office each day and left with the same expression I had worn on my way in. No more did I have the optimistic outlook I had brought with me from Florida. The fun of playing government agent had left me. I was becoming like them—like the people in Hartford who walked about with that same half sad, half angry expression. These were the people I saw on a daily basis, and these were the people Hector had to see for the "impossible" policy he could not get. I arrived at my apartment and sat in my car looking at the falling snow. Tomorrow, I thought, I will have to speak with Julie.

Fear squeezing his heart for the sake of a few dollars to put poor one back together again. How speak? Who again? Where me go to chew chew want I have not. That sound, that glorious sound of geese and water and smell of food cooked open way back in back in Summer. On the shore there were thousands of geese. They landed and took off as they pleased and they all seemed happy and healthy and you never ran across a dead one like you could walk across a dead person. There are laws protecting geese from men but not men from men or women from men or women from women and men. Safe. How? Go see who? Again and again and again forever until I am dead or back on the shore with the geese and...until we are back on the shore either dead or alive. Honk honk honk honk honk. Yes. Okay. That is all. Maybe tomorrow she will say yes to me and it will have been worth the wait. Then we will go and...we will go and go and keep going as long as we please like the geese who do as they please but do not leave each other and do not let each other die. There will be no more dying because there is still time. I will tell her this again tomorrow. Or I will stop time. Or. Or I will go again and again and again. And I honk honk will honk.

I lay awake that night after speaking to Susan. I thought about Hector and who it was that he wanted a policy for and why.

He needed a policy, and by his appearance, he needed one more than he had need for food or clean clothing. He walked into the office as much an outsider as one could possibly conceive: he was of medium height, young and handsome despite the obvious lack of access to soap and water, he was Puerto Rican and he was unhealthfully thin. He walked slowly like a man who has not had enough to eat for a very long time. His clothes were worn thin and not of the correct size. In all, it appeared as though he lived on the street and did not have a way of making enough money for shelter or clothing or good food. But the most alarming aspect of Hector was the fact that we could see him for hours at a time standing across the street from the office. He did not seem interested in anything other than obtaining the policy for the "girl" Susan had referred to: three years of the same dedication to the same goal which had not shown an ounce of success from the start. He must have had the rules of the policy explained to him from the very beginning. Three years of being turned away had not dented his resolve. I began to think that such a man intended to keep trying until he died. Nothing stopped him. I cannot, I thought, if it is in my power, fail this man. I will get him the policy he seeks for the person he seeks it for if it costs me from my own pocket. I turned in my lonely bed and thought about how wonderfully I could help Hector. I began to feel happy again.

I had seen Julie from time to time in the office, but I had not thought of her as someone I would need to talk to during what was supposed to be my short stay at the Hartford office. She was an older woman, one of the office type that has been in the business for a long time and did not seem to intend ever to leave. She had one of those severe faces surrounded by bright red hair always pulled tightly back and away causing the skin around her eyes to always appear to be on the brink of ripping. Susan had told me she was nice enough. I think she may have meant that Julie was not unusually hostile to the people she dealt with in the office. Those off the street, however, were another matter. Since our office did not contain an insurance salesperson, Julie, by being the Hartford sales coordinator, was referred to whenever someone mistook us for an agent's office. Hector apparently did not care about the distinction.

By this time I had decided to no longer shroud my inquiry behind a professional or social shroud. I walked to Julie's desk and asked her if she would have time to see me in the afternoon. She agreed that we would meet after lunch. Since she was one of the people that knew why I had come to the office, there was no change in her facial expression: she did not smile and agree, nor did she look directly at me when she spoke. She was, as Susan had said, "nice enough."

When I returned from my own lunch, Hector had just walked past the reception desk back out to the street. I became nervous at the thought of asking Julie questions about the man just after he left, but as I had decided the night before, I was going to be as relentless at getting to the bottom of his dilemma as he had been at attempting to solve it. I walked to Julie's desk and sat in the same chair Hector had sat in and faced the same woman he had just faced. She looked up at me without expression.

"How was your lunch?" I asked.

"I do not eat lunch," she answered.

"I made this appointment with you to ask you a few things about the man you just spoke with."

"Go on."

"Yes, well, I was wondering why he came to see you every day for...I mean, I was wondering what he wants."

"He wants a policy," she said.

"And why hasn't he obtained one?" I asked.

"Because he is not eligible."

"Why not?"

"Because he wants it for a girl who he is associated with, and she is not willing or able to obtain a physical."

"And they don't have the money?"

"I do not know about that," she said.

"Well, what does he say when he comes to you?" I asked.

"He says the same thing each time: 'My name is Hector Perez and I have come to get an insurance policy for my Noribel."

"And that is all he says?"

"No. Then I ask him if he has the form I gave him three years ago—the form that has to be filled out by a physician."

"And he does not have this form?"

"He does not."

"Where does he live? Is he without income; I mean, isn't he eligible for state aid?"

"I do not Know," she said, "he will not tell me and I stopped asking a long time ago."

I thanked Julie for her time and returned to my desk. I had hoped for much more information, perhaps some light that would lead me to a simple way through which I could resolve this poor man's dilemma, but it was not to be found in our office. I sat at my desk and thought for a long time before I decided that I would have to seek-out Hector and his Noribel and see for myself what the situation was. Since there was not a person in the office who I had to answer to, there would be no difficulty in leaving when Hector did.

I had come down with one of those notorious winter colds and decided to use it for an excuse to leave the office. I did not have to do this, and I did not as a rule use cold remedies, but I also did not want anyone to see me leave without reason. Since it hadn't occurred to me that Hector would travel very far from home on foot, I did not expect to be gone too long. What I planned to do when I saw him enter his place of residence, I did not know, but I did hope to at least get an idea of the situation from which he came. I would follow him, that was the plan, and what I would do when I found out where he lived, and what I would say to him if he recognized me from the office, I did not know. When Hector came after lunch, I put on my coat and told Susan I was going to the pharmacy.

I knew what I expected to see once Hector arrived at his destination: there would be one of those apartment buildings which we associate with the poor, there would be a junk car or two parked in front, and there would be Hector walking slowly up the stone steps to the broken front door. I had imagined how his apartment would look. In fact, I was beginning to have little use for the actual man. I had made him a project, a curiosity like a strange bird that flies into your yard now and then, and I thought that I was right about every aspect to his life that I had the notion to ponder. But it was not that simple. I had not counted on ther being another person, another reason, a powerful reason for Hector's visits. As I walked behind him I thought about Noribel. I must see her, I thought. I have to see her to place her in my picture of Hector. If she is the reason for Hector's visits, then she is the powerful force for his persistence.

Hector turned the corner from Elm onto Bishop Place and I followed. We had already walked over a mile on Elm, and I was beginning to worry that I would not be able to find my way back to the office if the journey took me to unfamiliar roads in what must be the dangerous section of the city. The buildings were becoming lower in height and increasingly more run down. I quickened my pace and got within twenty feet of Hector as he walked on. We had gone about two miles when Hector stopped, turned to the side, and stared directly at me. Not knowing what to do, I walked to him and stopped. We stood facing each other, and I at first did not Know what to do. My desire to find out what possessed Hector did, however, take control of me. I asked, without thinking, if I could come in. I said I was from the office and that I needed to see Noribel. He looked down, and finally said, "yes."

I had not planned to go into Hector's home, his life, but it seems now that there could be no other way. There was little information on him at the office. I had to see for myself what, or rather, who drove this man to haunt our office. And it was not until long after my visit to his cold apartment, long after I had spent an afternoon in the company of Hector and Noribel, that I was able to create this version of his story.

Chapter 2

Streaks of burning hot sun cut through the shades of the small family room and made a show of the smoke from the father's cigar that sat on an old plate in the middle of the table. Jose, father, man of the village, father of two sons and no daughters, sat and watched the changing scenes on the small black and white television set which rested on the far end of the table in front of the couch. The table had one leg that was too short—shorter than the others, and the father had often said that it was the other legs that were too long and that they should be cut to the proper length. There was an old carpet that looked to everyone to have been made around the same time as the table: brown from dirt and thin from being swept, it lay on the floor too long for the room and tucked under by the wall between the family room and the kitchen. The smoke from the cigar of the father whose name was Jose was heavy and hot, but not as hot as the air which took it and held it in a cloud by the ceiling where there was no fan. In Tablones, when there was no breeze coming off the ocean and there was no breeze coming off the mountains, it was July in Puerto Rico, and when there was no shade that could make a difference, it was too hot to think of anything. Hector looked, but could not think even of how he hated his father's cigar smoke.

The small town of Tablones saw little of the action that spilled sometimes into the smaller towns around San Juan. There were some gringos, but they were not frequent. They looked at the people of Tablones. They looked from their cars. Hector stood in the doorway of his home and looked at his father. He watched Jose who watched the television. He watched the smoke rise from the cigar. He looked at his father's bare feet and thought how rough the toes looked—how they looked like they were carved from dark wood to look like toes that had walked a million miles over rough roads and hot sand. The heel looked like it had not been sanded as well as it might have. The feet as a whole looked like they were part of the table on which they rested. The two, the table and the pair of feet, looked like they were made by the same hands, by the same uneven craftsman in the same crooked workshop that rested, uneven, on a slanted slope. Hector looked at his father's feet as they appeared on that day in that light in that room. He remembered what his father had told him about feet when he was a boy.

"Hector, you have those feet to carry you from place to place. Do not choke them by wearing fancy shoes. Try not to wear shoes. Let your feet be feet."

Those were the years when Hector had worked hard with his father on the farm. Day after day they had gone together to the fields by the road that did not have to be too smooth because it was only for walking. There were no cars coming down that road in that time and there was no need for them to ever come down that road. The windswept that road enough for the carts to pass smooth enough. There was enough of everything as he walked with his father to the fields that would produce for everybody in Tablones what they needed. What they did not need, they did not care about. That is why they did not care about the cars that did not need to ever come down that road even though they eventually did. There was not a person, in Hector's mind, in Tablones who cared what was going on in San Juan or what it was like to ride in a car. Life was what it was. There were the fields, there were the homes to take the food to, and there were other things to think about. But then, when Hector would listen to the simple wisdom of his father when he talked about feet or hands or what was enough, then when they walked together to the fields in the morning on the road that was not wider than two oxcarts full of food, there was not much need to worry or think about what was down that road and up and over that great mountain. It was enough to see that mountain. It was enough to feel the cool breeze that came down from the top and cooled the town at night when the breeze did not come off the ocean. And it was enough to hear a few words about what feet were for and what you were not supposed to do to them. There were no shoes as good as good feet in Tablones when the sun was going down and the cool breeze was blowing soft dust along the road. You could walk slowly then.

Hector stood in the door of the family room and saw the haze of smoke lift from his father's cigar and rise into smooth blanket up by the ceiling where a stream of light bolted through where the ceiling had not been joined to the front wall well enough. It was a joint that would keep out the rain, but it was not enough of a joint to keep out the sun. He stood and thought about how his father had offered him a cigar once when he had turned sixteen and how he had said no.

"Here, you are old enough now to enjoy this."

"No. No thank you."

"Then you know that you cannot ever smoke a cigar because you would not accept your first one from your father." They had stopped working in the field and had finished lunch and were squatting under a tree at the edge of the field by the road. The air was still. The sun was high and bright and Jose had taken off his pava and then put it back on many times since they had moved to that place under the tree for lunch. Hector never felt well after lunch and he had not liked the taste of the bread and chicken. He drank half his jug of water and stripped off the skin of a piece of sugar cane and was sucking the juice out when his father had offered him his first cigar. With lunch over, he did not want to work the rest of the day with the taste of cigar in his mouth. Later, he thought, maybe I will ask him for a cigar so he does not feel as though I disrespect him or that I do not approve of something my father enjoys. Maybe I will ask him for a cigar and I will smoke it and it will not taste as bad as it smells when it is lit or when it is not lit and it is just held up to my nose. He does this before he smokes one and he smiles. Maybe that is what you have to do to make it taste good like you have to peel away the skin of a piece of sugar cane before you can enjoy sucking the sweet juice out of it. Hector held the piece of sugar cane to his nose and smiled as he looked out over the road toward the mountain.

From the edge of the field where Hector and his father worked you could see the peaks of El Toro and El Yunque. Hector would often stare at these peaks and wonder how high they were or how long it would take to climb them. His father had told him that the El Yunque saw a great deal of rain all year. The rain would not come as it did in the valley, but it would fall with a steadiness and only stop for a short time before beginning again. The rain sounded good to Hector when it was very hot in the fields. He looked at the mountain as a giver of refreshment. As his father smoked he would look at the mountain and suck on his sugar cane and think about cool rain.

As Hector stood in the door of his father's house he looked at his father's shirt and he saw the button he had watched his mother sew on when he was a child and he had to go with him to the fields every day. The button was at the top of the shirt and it looked too large. Jose had told his wife that he wanted a big button so that it would be strong and it would never fall off again. He had told her to sew it as tight to the fabric as she could. She had sewn it tight, but it was too tight and was never used to close the shirt front. This had made Hector a little embarrassed of his father. He would wear the shirt for work or for social events and people would see a big red button sewn on a faded white shirt that hung down because of the weight of the button. Hector saw the button as he looked at his father who sat watching television. He smiled to see it.

There had been a good, steady rain the night before and Hector had helped his father repair the corner of the biggest chicken coup that had threatened to fall over when the water had washed away the dirt from the corner brace. They were walking back to the house when they heard the dog, Paco barking at something by the road. They turned to see Hector's brother, Jesus walking toward them with Paco leading the way. Jesus had been away at school for most of the year and was not expected home for two weeks. He walked carrying his bags and he wore the clothes of a gringo.

"Look, Hector," Jose said. "It is your gringo brother returning from heaven."

Hector knew that there would be an argument. He had hoped that his father would not start this when he saw his brother walking toward them.

"Ola, Hector. Ola,Papa," Jesus said as he waved and smiled. "Yes I have returned from heaven to tell you the good news."

"You have come home to work like a good Puerto Rican," Jose said.

"Yes, Papa," Jesus said, "I have come to slave in the fields with you and Hector so we can someday buy another big button for your favorite shirt."

Jesus knew that his insult would not affect his father, but he felt obligated to give a response as sarcastic as the one about returning from heaven. They did not get along as well as Hector and the father did. Jesus was too headstrong, Jose had said, and he would get himself in trouble if he thought he could take on San Juan and the gringos with something as simple as an education. Jesus had argued that he did not want to take anything or anybody on. All he wanted, he said, was to get an education and see what it would get him so he would not have to work in the fields like a dog the rest of his life. Hector took the bags from his brother and brought them in the house. He felt ashamed of his father and he knew that it was wrong to feel this. Why can't he just throw the shirt away, he thought. Why can't he just throw it away and forget about it?

Hector could smell the chicken his mother was cooking as he stood in the door and looked at his father. She was cooking on the grill, and there was also the smell of peppers being roasted with onions and garlic. The smell of garlic filled the air and swirled with the smoke from the cigar and the comfortable fumes of the peppers. Hector continued to stare at his father's feet as he thought about Jesus and his coming home after he had been away for so long in a place that was not so far by bus, but would be very far if you walked.

Jesus had sat with the family for dinner when he had returned two weeks early from school. The sun was going down on the house where they sat to eat. It was the time of day Hector enjoyed the most: he could feel the day changing to night as the air became cooler and the breeze seemed to bring the ocean to the door and let the magic of the waves lift and float his young mind out to sea and into a dream land where every day was not work, was not choked with heat, was not hard on the feet, was not disturbed by tense arguments and the smell of rum on the breath of Jose and the smell of cigar smoke everywhere even though there was a breeze. Hector closed his eyes at the table for only a moment and let his mind be out there where he felt the breeze would take him. Jesus and Jose talked on intense, little remarks and arguments. The bowl of rice in front of Hector and between him and the cabinet was being used by the father as a ashtray. Hector opened his eyes and looked at his brother. A breeze came in and waved his mother's skirt like an old flag of an old country where everything moves in slow, dreamy motion. The purple moved to the white and the green moved to the blue and they all seemed to fade a little more when the motion caught his eye.

"But you do not see," Jesus said to his father, "there are other things in life that do not depend on where you live or what you do to stay alive. There are thought and ideas that you have never even thought of and probably never will."

"So I am a fool?" Jose asked.

"Not so much a fool, but you should at least try to understand that I am not in school to learn how to work the land. I go because I want to expand my horizons."

"What horizons?"

"That is what I mean, father. You do not see that there is a lot more to life than working in the fields and drinking rum and playing cards or dominoes."

"Yes, Jesus, there is more. Perhaps you will tell us what is worth seeking and what is not so when your mother and me and your brother go to school with you will not waste our time looking in the wrong books, or asking the wrong people the wrong questions. Who knows, we may run across some fool who tells us that the way to understanding leads you back to the farm for a few free meals and a roof to sleep under."

"I do not have to come back if you do not want me."

"Who tells you you have to come back? Not me. If you are so smart, why don't you stay with some of your smart friends and see if they will cook dinner for you? Why don't you? You left us. If it were not for Hector, I do not think we would be doing as well as we are. Thank him too if you intend to thank anyone before you leave again. He understands what you never have — he stays with his father and leads a simple life and he is happy."

"How do you know he is happy?"

"Because he smiles when he has the simple things." "Don't you think he should have more? How do you know that he doesn't want to go to school with me?"

"Because I know. God has given me one good son. Look at him, he is four years younger than you and he is at least twice as strong. Look at his skin, it is brown and healthy like mine, not pale as a ghost like yours. You should ride in a car when you come home. You should look out the windows at us like a gringo. That is what you mean by understanding, I think. You want to be like people who drive cars to see what real people look like. Then, once you have seen, you can take your understanding back to the school and tell them about it. 'I saw these brown people working in the field in the hot sun with their hats that they call pavas.' Then you can all laugh."

"I would not laugh, father. No one would laugh with me. The others I go to school with are from the island too. We don't think it is funny the way you live. We think it is sad."

"Sad?" Jose asked as he rose from his chair. "You think I am a sad sight? You had better find a place to hide for a while, or I will give you something to be very sad about." Jose started for Jesus, but the son was up and out the door before the father had finished his sentence. Hector sat still and stared at the bowl of rice and cigar ashes in front of him and he felt something in his throat as though he had swallowed the cigar his father was smoking and now it was caught behind his Adam's apple hot and dry.

Hector stood in the door looking at his father for a long time. He knew that he may not see him for a very long time; maybe, he would not see him ever again. He thought about the night Jesus had come home early from school. It was in July.

Jesus said many things to him when they were alone, and these things had made Hector think that he may want to find what is out in the world. Soon his brother's words were reaching deeper inside and Hector agreed to go one day to the ocean with him. It was not far to the beach at Playa do Naguabo, so they decided to walk. Jose was in town that Sunday, as he was every Sunday, and they knew that they would not be missed. Walking, they talked as two brothers will, and the older brother told of many places in the world and many people. Hector listened, but he also felt the effect of this temporary freedom on the road that wound gracefully off the high plain of Tablones toward the ocean he had felt and dreamt of but never seen. He became excited at the thought and Jesus could not resist catching his brother's contagious smile as they walked together. But before they reached the beach, Jesus told Hector the good news he had mentioned when he had first gotten home.

"Remember how I said that I had good news when I came back?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, how would you feel if your brother had gotten accepted to a good college in the U.S.?"

"What do you mean?"

"I got into a very good school for the fall, and I am going there to get my degree."

"But I thought you were already in school in San Juan."

"Yes, but this school is better than the one I go to now. Besides, don't you think it is exciting that I will be going to school in the U.S.? Think of it, Hector. Think of all the beautiful women I will meet. Think of all the money I will make when I graduate."

Jesus was very excited as he told Hector the good news. At one point, he stopped walking to face his younger brother and make his point more clear.

"Think of it, Hector. I will have money and knowledge, and beautiful women too. And, to top it off, I will be in the most exciting country in the world!"

"But don't we have such schools here? And aren't there beautiful women in San Juan?"

"Yes, but there are more beautiful women in the U.S. And as for schools, yes we have them here, but I do not want to spend the rest of my life on this small island.'

They walked the rest of the way to the beach as Jesus told of the many great things he had heard about the U.S. and its beautiful women. Hector had not given much thought to women until he turned sixteen, and even then, he had only the girls in Tablones to think about, and none of them excited him. They walked through the tunnel that went under the highway, and at the other side, Hector saw the ocean for the first time in his life. But his attention was soon turned away when a young girl, about his age and a little shorter, walked past him wearing less clothing than he had ever seen a woman wear in his life. Jesus saw his brother follow her with his eyes, and he could not resist making a remark: "See? You should have gone to the beach a long time ago. If girls like her are here, imagine the ones in the U.S.!" She had not heard Jesus' remark, but the girl turned her head as she walked and looked at Hector. He could see her eyes flash in the sun as she spun toward the water in a full run.

Hector knew that his father was aware of his presence in the doorway, so he did not have to say anything to get his father's attention. He had heard all the arguments. All he wanted now was for his father to say something, or even to motion with his hand, and then he would leave. He looked at his father's feet and saw his left big toe twitch. That will have to be enough of a goodbye, he thought. I will take that as him wishing me well on my journey.

Chapter 3

Golden and wonder dream vision awaited sleeping hero onshore offshore mosquito beach plaything ramba. Billy-king fo fo motion sleepers and waiting princes a hard lest and hard lester watching mortify lully bye bye shhh, ssshhh, ssshhh. Let the wind take him to sleep. Let the waves lull him, baby. Lean over, Noribel, and kiss sleeping hero streamed on his blanket by the coral waves of green and warm magical peace. Beautiful Noribel, let fall your tender hand on his waves of black hair and his brown stone carved features. He does not know his beauty and you do not know yours. Let the waves of your shhh shy hands wash his youth from the cool crystal shore. Back, back to the time when you saw him looking at you; back, back until you remember when he first spoke to the air that circled and swept your long brown hair and made close your green eyes and made shake your delicate legs, bare—bare to the world and the waves of green until it was just you and he. Let the water sooth*"your face with the specks of sunshine from his golden words. Hero! Hero, awake. You have a visitor who will not wait. Wake! Wake and hear her songs and open her eyes. Open! Let her see you see her see the waves of pure bolts of crystal light and powerful sight. Wake, Hector. Go fine too. Wake!

The sun was already going down when Hector finally walked away from his father's home and his father's life. He took the same road that he and his brother had taken to Playa de Naguabo one year before. The letters had come, as Jesus promised, and they told of how wonderful the U.S. was. Jesus wrote that he hoped Hector would wise up and come to see for himself, but it was not an easy thing to do. Hector would first have to come up with the money for travel, then he would have to defy his father's wishes. The second task had been the harder to do; in fact, it turned out to be impossible. He would have to leave the same way that Jesus had: if he returned, he would not be received with love. Jose had told Hector that if he was ever foolish enough to follow his brother's footsteps, he would be even less welcome home because his betrayal would cost so much more. And Hector had listened to this warning for more than a year, but there was another lure to leave that no sense of loyalty to the family could withstand—Noribel.

Hector had met Noribel the first time he had gone to the shore with his brother. After he had seen her, he knew that she was not like the other girls he had met from his own village. She was a star, a sharp knife straight to Hector's heart, and he did not know it then, but the knife would give a wound of painful joy. He fell in love with her as soon as he had looked into her eyes full on the first day that he had laid eyes on her. He felt that she loved him too; when he looked, she looked, and they both saw the same thing. They were in love the way two young people fall in love when they do not know each other. They were in love the way two people are in love when they feel a new heat in their hearts and they see with new eyes how beautiful life can be. To them, on that first meeting, there was nothing else to look at except each other. There were no sounds of other people to listen to and no thoughts in the head to distract. It was them and them alone on that first day, and it was them and them alone for every day that followed. Hector could not resist the will of Noribel and all that she was to him. When she said that they should go to the U.S., the scale was tipped. Jose could not say no to this because he did not know what he was saying no to. Noribel became for Hector a star to follow that would not be denied. Death would result from denial: death in the heart that Hector had not known that he had until she showed it to him. When she blinked or smiled, it was all he had to see. When she laughed or hummed a song, it was all that he had to hear. When she kissed him for the first time, she was all that he had to know. And when she said that they should go to the U.S. together, his mind was made up.

Hector picked up the water jug that he used to carry to the fields. He turned from his father's house and did not look back—his thoughts were already on Noribel.

Song of the silent men, men who follow the light, come, join me tonight. Hector thought, wished for a bright future. Now, now big soilders on the shore and sailors long dead and in deep sea cavern, join my song of hope and love: come with me in spirit and do my dance with me. Walk this rose road with me and...Noribel! Walk lonely men of lonely fields. My past was your past, come now shed the head of the sun, put down your sweating pava and dance. We are all there is, all there should be. Let us bring our beauty to other worlds and other men and women and boys and girls and sea and wind will sing our glad song as we travel in the perfect shadow of Noribel. Allow me to tell.

Shaky side dance and waving of the hair, she moves with friendly wind steps above the ground that cannot hold her. She sees the dawn from a light shining behind and within the curious i past and the tormented future. She, she has the power of flight, though, gentlemen and ladies, she does not have to use it. She is the circus and the cool water. She is the happy clown and the perfect spin in the silent air. She is the angel sparrow on the angels flight. With her there is no night, no wrong, and no right. All is there on the tip of her small nose and she dances through tender fields in the morning light and her dance makes me cry for its beauty. She is all and all that will ever be. And she is all for me.

Hector walked toward Noribel. She was waiting for him, but he was not expected for another day, and since the walk to her house would only take two hours he had a day to kill. Instead of heading straight for her village, he followed the same road to the shore where he had met her. He thought that a visit there would do his heart good after having left his father and mother and home for what would probably be the rest of his life. Jose had put it that way. He had said that if he should lose his second and only good son to the malicious call of the wind, then neither would ever be welcome home again. But Hector could not let that bother him; he had had a year to prepare to leave as he knew he would leave once he had met Noribel. More than a year had passed, but he had thought enough about it, maybe too much, and he had often thought himself a coward for not leaving earlier. The days had passed slowly during his time of indecision.

Paco was heard wheezing outside Hector's window, and the sound made him sick. The sun was barely up, the air had moisture, and Hector thought he was getting a cold. September had come to Tablones; it had started as August had, hot and dry. But now it was damp in the morning, and Hector knew that the rainy season was about to begin. He lay in bed thinking about Noribel. He thought about the first day that they had spent together, and he thought about all the other Sundays in between. He made the trip to her house on foot many times, and he was glad that she did not mind that he came with bare feet and no gifts; no, she did not care about anything the other girls were said to care about. His visits lasted all day and sometimes into the night. Noribel would wait on the small porch of her small house, and her parents were liberal enough not to demand that an adult be present with the couple the entire time that they were together. Hector appreciated this, but their presence would not have made a difference. All he wanted was to talk with her, to hold her small hand, and to look at her beautiful face. Sometimes it made him too nervous to look in her eyes, so he would look to other parts of her. She did not mind that he stared, and she often blushed when he would catch her staring at his sharp shoulders or his lean legs. As Paco wheezed, Hector held his stomach. Many mornings were like this for him: he knew he had to help his father in the fields, he knew that he wanted to be with Noribel, and the conflict was beginning to wear on his nerves. He slid out of bed naked and cold and stood for a minute naked on the orange rug of his room and listened to Paco choking. Poor dog, he thought. He must have had a lover when he was younger too. I hope that he was able to live with her for a while before she died or left. I hope she did not leave. Not even a dog deserves that. But that thought made him think of his thoughts of leaving his father, and it made him feel guilty. I have not done anything wrong, he thought. He pulled on his long pants and a shirt that his mother had made for him and went out into the kitchen. There were many more mornings like this in the time that Hector could not decide how to leave. He knew he would leave though, and the mornings would have to be overcome.

It was quiet on the road to Playa de Naguabo. Hector walked slowly and listened for the sound of the ocean. He was in no hurry. He passed a place that he had seen from the road many times and decided that he would go there and spend some time with the silence. There was a brook a short distance down the hill that the road skirted and there seemed to be a path, though it was overgrown. Hector walked down through the heavy, damp underbrush. He saw that there was a clear spot where he could sit and put his feet in the water, or lay in the water if he wanted to. He put down his brown sack full of his belongings next to a fallen tree that had its limbs in the water. I will lie in this brook, he thought, and he took off his clothes and lay in the shallow water. It felt cool on his skin as it washed over him. He lay for a long time staring up at the lush green trees and the clear sky now turning gold and red with the coming of dusk. His head was back in the water too, and he felt himself float slightly with the smooth running water. This is what heaven must be like, he thought. This and Noribel with me floating on cool water on a hot day with nothing between us and God except the thick trees and the cool breeze of late afternoon. He lay like this for a little longer before he climbed out of the water and went to sleep on a bed of leaves.

He dreamt that there was music everywhere as he walked with Noribel on a cushion of moist air. They strode naked through villages and cities, through bazaars and carnivals, through parks and gatherings of smiling people. Everywhere they went people sang to them in languages that were foreign before, but now made perfect sense. All the songs were alike: all were of their union and their love and how it made the world better and more perfect. They looked around at all the people who sang and laughed. They were funny, happy people who wished only to please the two perfect, naked, floating people. It was like heaven, only it was real and on earth. The float picked up speed and wound them in circles. It lifted them and dropped them suddenly making Noribel's hair flop up and down over her face. She became frightened and turned her face toward Hector. He looked in the blur of her face and saw that she had become Jose and the sight of his father made him angry and fearful. "No, father," he said in his dream, "you cannot take her. She will not die for you." And as he said this his father took his machete and swung it at Hector fast and hard. He jumped from his father and awoke. It had become night, and he was not sure at first whether or not he had left the dream. He was still naked, but the songs of the dream had turned to the light rushing of the brook. Silence, the absence of human sound other than his own breathing, made him scared and he anticipated the dangers he had heard of when the older people told stories of things that can happen to young people out on the island at night. But most of all he feared the image of his father's angry face as he took Noribel's body and used her arm to swing his machete to kill his son. All the music and the soft wind and the floating of the dream had gone with his father's one swing: all the magic of the naked couple and the smiling faces had been turned ugly and fierce by Jose. Hector closed his eyes for a moment and fought the urge to cry. I must not, he thought. I must not allow my father to take away what is beautiful and new to me. He can do as he pleases, and now I can too. His thoughts of his father became more grim and more resentful the more he thought about the guilt he felt for leaving him to work alone in the field and face alone the questions of the other older people in the village who would want to know what had happened to Jose's good son who had helped him so much with the work that had to be done in the fields if the family was to live the life that all knew was the only life to live if only young boys and girls could resist the fire in their stomachs and in their blood long enough to see that the way of the village was and is the only way to live for good people who enjoy the good, simple things in life that are given to them for free by God who does not ask only that each person does his or her share of the work that must be done for the survival of the village which is the only place to live in peace and happiness. Hector too had believed in the village. He too had gone about his business and grown older in a slow, calm, comfortable way—the way his father had. But his father did not have a brother named Jesus who tempted from afar the will of a young man. And his father did not have an angel called Noribel who swept her fluid beauty in front of him in waves of hot passion and young nakedness. His father also did not have a place next to a brook where he could go and spend the night if he cared to before he made the short walk to Quebrada Seca where the angel would be waiting to start a long journey to wherever their hearts decided they should go. His father was never free—never free enough to go or not go, sleep or not sleep, spend time here or there and make with life whatever could be made with the things that would come on a journey that was headed anywhere but here. The guilt was starting to leave Hector as he thought about how free he was, and he decided to try and fall back asleep. He rolled up his shorts for a pillow and drank a handful of water from the brook as if he were the first and last man on earth. This is my brook, he thought. Tomorrow I will leave it to whoever comes after me. There is always going to be new water coming, so let who will drink, drink. And if they want to lay in the water to cool off, let them do that too. I will not own this place tomorrow, but I own it tonight. He lay back down and thought about Noribel and how she would look as she ran toward him with her bag like his bag full of all the things that they had called their own before when they were trapped in old villages with old people and old ways. He thought about how they would run as far as they wished and then they would walk as far as they wished. Eventually, they would come to the ocean at a place where they could get on a boat and go to other place in the world and run or walk when they pleased or sit down in the sun and eat fruit or lay naked in a cool brook that someone else had owned the night before, but was theirs when they wanted it to be theirs. Eventually they would come to many beautiful places and be as perfect as a dream in them. At least there would be no angry fathers in their new places—there would be nothing but them and their love.

In the morning Hector woke with a chill. He was not used to sleeping outside, and the dew had risen and covered his bare skin. He sat up and saw that he was naked by the naked brook and the naked plants. The sun had just risen fully in the sky; subtly, the light stretched through the trees overhead and sparkled in spots on the water. He dipped his jug in the cool water and filled it for the walk to Quebrada Seca and Noribel. He tried to remember whether or not he had had dreams in the night, but he could not remember. Standing, he pulled on his shorts and put on his pava and started for the road. Today I really start, he thought, and he was on the road to what he felt was the beginning of his new life.

He only had a few miles to go, and he had told Noribel that he would be at her house sometime before noon. He had anticipated a big fight with his father before he left, but since that had not happened, he was ahead of schedule. In the time that he had been with Noribel he had become familiar with the roads between Tablones and Quebrada Seca, so he decided to kill some time by walking along the shore. He knew that he could reach a point along the shore that is directly in line with the back of her house where he had told her he would be. He had imagined the scene a thousand times: she would be sitting on the back porch railing with her feet hanging and swinging, and he would emerge through the underbrush by the well and the empty chicken coop. She would smile when she saw him, then she would pick up her bag and run toward him. That is how he wanted it to go—that is how he had dreamed it would go. But he knew that Noribel's father would not be in favor of her leaving, and he worried that there might be more of a problem for her to leave than there had been for him. Noribel was also needed around the house. Her father was very old and she had been in charge of taking care of him when the mother went off to work. It was not the kind of life she had hoped for when she thought about what she would be doing when she came to the age of a young woman, but it was the life that she had been forced to accept. She told Hector that she had to leave, they had to leave, or she would rot away like an orange in the sun. But they had hoped together, and they had come up with their plan to simply leave the lives that they knew and create better ones as they journeyed to wherever their feet would take them.

Hector walked along the empty beach. He began to feel sorry for Noribel's mother and father, but he could not let himself think about them. They will find a way to live, he thought. They will find a way just like they would have to if she died or became crippled. No, do not even think of that. "Fool," he said to himself out loud. He reached the point along the beach where he knew he was in line to Noribel's house. There was a rock that they had sat on many times when he had gone to visit her, and he sat on it to wait for the sun to reach a point in the sky that he knew to be just before noon. He opened his bag and took out a piece of bread that he had brought along for the trip. She will bring food, he thought, she will bring money and food and we will live like a king and a queen. He sat on the rock eating his bread dreaming of the wonderful foods that they would eat for the first time. Facing the ocean, he watched a fishing boat round the point of Punta Puerca and thought how it would be if they had such a boat to live on and travel the seas. But these thoughts died quickly because he knew nothing of the sea or what was beyond them. He tore off a piece of bread and threw it into the waves. The water caught it, but it was back at his feet. You do not want my bread, he thought, and he looked to the sun and saw that it was time to go.

Chapter 4

Noribel waited, as Hector had thought she would, on the porch on the back of her house. The sun was up full overhead now, and humidity choked the air that they breathed. Sun, like the sun on the hottest day the earth ever saw, came down in a pour of pulsing flames. Heat from the fat ovens in a swollen world made Hector squint and grit his teeth. When they saw each other, neither smiled.

They walked toward the beach where Hector had just come from; they instinctively, though cautiously, walked toward their favorite rock. Neither spoke in the ten minutes it took to get there.

They sat on the rock, both facing the ocean, both listening to the waves, and neither knowing what to say. Hector thought: what am I doing here? Who is this girl I am with that I thought was my only reason for living. Yesterday all I could think of was the time she said nothing and took off her dress and laid it on this stone and sat naked for a short time before walking into the waves. I thought she was going to walk and keep walking. I was scared for her. And I thought I would die if I did not get a chance to see her naked for a longer time. Much longer as it was later when we were together for longer times in more secret places. I did not know. I do not know now. I want to see her naked again, but this time I want to know who she is first. I want to know who this girl is next to me who does not speak but looks out toward the waves now but said to me before that she wants to leave her house and her family and go with me to wherever we want to go for as long as we want to keep going. Me and me and me alone forever. Who? Why does she want to do this? I slept last night in a foreign place without a blanket and without my clothes on. Why? Two days ago I was just another boy working the fields of Puerto Rico with my father and we were happy. It was yesterday, I think. It was every yesterday of my life that I saw my father smile at me during lunch. It was every yesterday that my mother called my name when it was time to eat supper and I was outside watching two pigs try to get out of the pen. They did not know that I was watching them. They are smart, but I think I am smarter. It was yesterday. And it was yesterday that I saw my father's hands shake and his mouth open as if to speak when we heard that his only brother had died. He slept outside that night, and he did not speak for days. It was after that when I fell off the roof and they say I was not breathing that I saw in his eyes when I woke up that he thought I was going to die too. He was shaking then too. Yesterday, or the day before, but not longer ago this happened. Jesus was not there. He was not there as often as we wanted. I wonder if he would shake and not speak and sleep outside if he heard that I died. And Noribel? What if this journey to wherever we are going—if to the U.S. or somewhere else—leads to my death? Will she shake, or will she suffer in some other way? Will she care? Who is she? Where are we going? Why am I doing this to my father? Why is she doing this to her father? Is it that we would have to do it sooner or later anyway? Does she care about her father and mother the same way that I care about mine? I have not asked. Maybe I should ask before we go anywhere. But what if she leaves me and does not want to see me ever again? Could I live without her? No. I will not bother her with questions that make her feel guilty now. I hope she has something to say soon, though. I do not want to sit here in the hot sun all day.

They sat on the rock facing the waves and Noribel thought: that is a boat out there. That is a big boat. Maybe it will come close enough to the shore that we will be able to signal it to pick us up. Probably not. I wonder who is on it. Where are they going? Where did they come from? Gringos? I should stop using that word if I am going to live in the states. He will have to stop too. But I will have to tell him, poor boy. He didn't have school, and that is why he is like he is. He is not dumb. No, I found out by the way he can understand when I read his brother's letters to him. Poor boy. Poor beautiful statue of a boy. Man! He is more like a man in his body than any of the boys that were at school. Like a hard-worker, statue of a perfect man. Beautiful body, beautiful eyes, beautiful hair under that ridiculous hat. And what an innocent boy. Mom always said that I should find an innocent boy from one of the small villages like she did. Yea, and look what it got her! So what am I doing with a boy that is never going to be rich? What am I doing with a boy that is never going to be anything other than a jibaro at heart—a true Puerto Rican. And how little he knows! If I told him that my mother gave me her blessing to go with him, he would probably think that we are a bad family and that I am a bad girl. So, so innocent. Then why am I going with him? For his body? No. I could have more than him and experienced too. Because I love him. That is why. I love him like I have never loved before, and if we fail and have to move back home, well then we can just live here with my parents until we can get jobs and make enough money to buy our own house. That would not be too bad. At least I would be with him. I don't know why exactly, but I have to have him. We should be okay. I'll just lead him around, and he can find a job working with his hands. There are alot of Puerto Rican in the states. They will help us. We'll be fine. I want to go. Should I say something to get this burro to his feet. No, I'll wait. He might have that stubborn pride that some men have that makes them always want to be the one to get things going. Maybe not. He sure didn't mind when I took my clothes off and let him have a good look at me. If he only knew that I did it to get him to take his off. He wouldn't. Poor boy. I had to take them off for him. Like a young saint. Saint Hector. Waiting for God knows what. He should have chased me into the water and gone crazy. Little jibaro. Godd little jibaro. Two virgins in the water like fish. Once I had his clothes off, that was that. They sat on the rock looking at the ocean for as long a time as Noribel could take before she figured that he was not going to be the one to lead the way. That was fine, for her, because she knew the island better than he did. She stood and took him by the hand. "Let's go, Hector," she said as she pulled slightly for him to stand. He did not say a word, but followed obediently as she knew he would. They took a road that lead around the coast. Noribel had been on the road before and she knew that it eventually lead to San Juan. But they were not going to San Juan; instead, she had planned that they would circle around south of the city and head for Arecibo. She knew the road there too, and she knew what to expect when they arrived.

Noribel had not told Hector, but she had been given enough money for the both of them to travel comfortably to the states. Her mother had told her that she would not receive any more money once the two had arrived there because they should be able to make a living quite easily once they have made a few contacts and pursued a few potential opportunities for work. Noribel's mother had been to the states many times when she was younger, and she had shared her experiences with her daughter when she was growing to the age when she would also wish to go there. "Stand tall," she had said, "and do not let anyone push you around. Speak English even to those who you think speak Spanish. Your English is very good, so you should have no problems." Noribel respected her mother for her resolve and education. She knew that she too would eventually enroll in one of the universities in the states. She did not have to tell Hector this though. He did not need to know all her plans.

They walked on toward San Juan. Noribel would have preferred to hire a car for the trip, but she did not want Hector to think she had too much money. He does not know how to use money, she thought, so I cannot give him the opportunity to think of ways to spend what we have. Who knows, he could say that we should go to Spain to look up his ancestors or something crazy like that. No, I will tell him that I have only enough to get us some food and a boat to the states. He looks so hungry, poor boy. I wonder what he ate today.

The walk was starting to wear on Noribel, and she thought that it would be a good idea to catch a bus from Fajardo to San Juan and then another to Arecibo. Hector walked on steadily beside her. He would not think of taking a bus. He had never ridden on anything other than a mule in his entire life. A mule, or his own feet were the only way for him to get from one place to another. But Noribel had not walked everywhere as he had. She had taken many buses, and she knew where to go to catch one. Her education had taken her to San Juan and beyond to Arecibo on many field trips to the universities or the zoo or the historic sites across the northern coast of the island. She knew people too; she had, through these trips and those taken with her mother, learned how to handle herself in the sections of San Juan that were known to be dangerous. Her mother had said that she should never be afraid of the bad people. She should look at them square in the eyes and tell them with her boldness that she was not going to take any aggravation. This would not always work, she said, but if it did not, then a young girl should know how to run. Noribel had paid close attention to her mother's advice, but she preferred to avoid conflict if it were possible. She knew that the harbor in San Juan was in a bad section of the city and that the harbor in Arecibo was not as dangerous. Hector would not know what to do if trouble started, she thought. He would probably try to fight these people if one of them said something to me. He would fight with his hands, and they would fight with guns and knives and I would be bringing back bad knews to his father. Noribel thought about this as they walked and she turned to look at Hector. He walked along at a steady pace and returned her look.

Noribel knew that they would be in Fajardo soon as they descended the last hill she intended to climb. Her feet were sore already and she could not understand how Hector could walk all this way with no shoes. She had worn her best tennis sneakers for the walk, but she did not think that it would take as long as it was taking to reach Fajardo. She could not imagine how he would agree to walk to Arecibo. Of course, she thought, he does not know how far that is. He does not even know what a city looks like. They stopped at the base of a hill so he could fill his jug in a nearby brook. She watched him as he walked across the sharp stones on the side of the road as if it were carpet. He leaned over and filled the jug and took a long drink. He must have drunk out of that same jug his entire life, she thought. It looks older than him.

They walked on into the town of Fajardo. Hector lead the march now, and the two kept an even step despite Noribel's discomfort. She had never walked this far in her life; indeed, she did not intend to walk as far again. She felt the money in her purse that she carried separately from her bag. This will get us to the states comfortably, she thought. This is enough for us to travel and eat and have some fun too when we get there. She took her hand out of her purse and again watched Hector's steady pace. Noribel's mother had given her the money she would need to make the trip with Hector. He knew this, but he did not know how much was given or how much was needed. That was fine with him. He trusted Noribel with money if for no other reason than the fact that he did not have reason not to trust her. Her mother had given what she knew would be enough, and then she had thrown in extra in case there was a problem along the way. She also trusted Noribel with the money for good reason: she had taught her daughter many things, and one of them was how to travel with cash in your pocket in places where people do not care if they kill for what they want. Noribel had seen these places. She had gone to school in San Juan for a while, had been on many trips to places of higher learning, had been groomed by her mother to be streetwise as well as educated. Hector knew nothing about money, had never seen a city, had never been in a fight with a stranger, and had never been taught how to read or write. He was as simple as a person from the country could get. He was what everyone thought of when they thought the word, jibaro. And although Noribel was born in a small town like Hector's, she was as far from the image of a small town girl as one could get. Her mother, highly educated and well traveled had planned an upbringing for her daughter the way that Hector's father had planned one for his son. The difference was that Noribel's planned life included leaving the house at a young age and going off to see the world. Hector was to never see anything outside Tablones. He was to be content with the life that his father had known. As they walked closer to Fajaro, Hector saw for the first time a town where there were cars parked along the streets, busses picking up passengers, and many signs written in a language that he had only learned a few words to speak, and none to read. He felt as though he was already in a different country and he smiled. That didn't take long, he thought.

The road they had taken had opened up to the main street of Fajardo as they came out of the dense vegetation and down from the hills. Fajardo sat in the middle of a lesser and a greater range of hills and mountains, and Noribel saw the mountains that lay between them and San Juan as an obstacle too difficult to surmount on foot. She had known about these mountains. She had planned to take the bus from this town to San Juan but she was not exactly sure where the station was. We will have to ask someone, she thought. But she did not want to raise suspicions among the locals; she knew, and Hector did not, that people in the outlaying towns such as Fajardo were much like the people in the small farming towns and they would not look favorably on a young, unmarried couple travelling without parents. She thought about this and shook her head. Why do people have these strange ideas about men and women, she asked herself. She thought about the note her mother had wisely given her explaining (in Spanish and English), that she had permission to travel with this young man to wherever their journey took them. Hector had no such note. His father would not have given him one even if he had had the skills to write or an idea of what the reader might want to know. Noribel watched to see if Hector's gait slowed when his bare feet hit the hot pavement as they entered the town. She watched him walk ahead and wondered how far he would go before he turned around to see if she was still behind him. Probably all the way to San Juan, she thought. He'd probably keep walking for days, only stopping to drink from a stream and to fill his pava with water and dump it over his head. She smiled as she thought of how rugged her young man was, and she could not help feeling somewhat proud of her ability to pull such a gem from the stale and eventless ways of his former life. She did not know that as she thought about her man's former life, he wondered about what she had done before they had met. They had not talked much about her education or her previous travels, so he did not know that she had been many places and had seen many things. He did not know that she had met other young men in her life and they had been close to her. And he did not know that she spoke English perfectly and that she planned to go to college in the U.S. as soon as they were settled. To him, the trip could take them anywhere. Looking at Fajardo, he wondered how much larger San Juan could possibly be.

Noribel felt hungry and thirsty as they walked through town. She would have to stop him soon so that she could rest and ask someone where the bus station was. She saw a restaurant and told Hector that they had to stop there so she could rest. They walked in and sat down at a booth next to a window where they could watch the people and cars passing. Hector had never been in this type of restaurant before, and he felt like he did not belong. The others inside where not used to seeing people dressed as though they were on a farm, and they stared at him. Hector did not return the stares; he looked down, or out at the street, or at Noribel. He felt the people staring though, and he thought that taking off his pava would make them stop. Shame did not make him take his hat off. He had thought about how different he would probably be from people in towns and cities, and he had thought a long time before they had started their journey that he must not be ashamed of how he looked or where he came from or what he did not know about other people and other places. Besides, he thought, I am with the most beautiful woman in the world. For me she has left her family and walked. For me she has taken off her dress and folded it by the rock we sat on at the shore. For me she has waited in the water without her clothes. And to me she has given the best gift that a woman has to give. He looked at Noribel and her green eyes were bright fron the sun coming in the window at a high, sharp angle. When she smiled, he thought how he had never seen anything so beautiful as her eyes. With both hands she took her long black hair away from her face and held it behind her head to let some air to the back of her neck. Hector could not believe how lucky a man he was when he saw this.

Noribel left Hector alone for a while in the restaurant and went out to find the bus station. He did not mind her leaving, but he was not sure about riding a bus. He had thought of the trip as being on foot. But, he thought, she is not so good at walking. It is her shoes. If she took off her shoes she would have real feet and she would not feel the road. He sat in the booth looking out the window waiting for her to return. There was music in the restaurant and Hector could not understand the words. We are still in Puerto Rico, he thought. Why is this song in English? The words made no sense to him but he liked the way the song went. The melody was simple and clean, and the tempo was slow. He thought that it must be a love song. He wanted Noribel to return. Music and the sound of people clacking forks against plates and the sound of the traffic out in the street made him think that there has always been this world out beyond Tablones and these people have always lived without working on a farm or walking with bare feet down dirt roads when the breeze comes down off the mountains and washes cool dust through your toes. Not one of these people wore a pava. All had shoes on their feet. Hector sat stock straight in the booth and did not take his eyes off the road. He looked in the direction Noribel had walked and began to worry that she was in trouble or that she had changed her mind about him and was not going to come back. The music was still there. He could tell that the singer was singing about or to his girlfriend, and he thought that girls must often make men sing sad songs if there were sad songs sung in every language. She will be back, he thought, she will be back because she loves me and nothing could go wrong when two people are in love the way we are. Noribel came around the corner and walked into the restaurant as he knew she would. She smiled when she saw him looking out the window for her. Since she had paid the bill before she left, there was nothing else to do except walk to the bus station. "C'mon Hector," she said, "the bus for San Juan leaves in ten minutes, and we don't want to miss it." Hector picked up his bag and his water jug and followed. He looked back inside as they passed the window where he had sat. I was there, he thought. I have been there already.

Chapter 5

The bus was air-conditioned. Noribel gave Hector the window seat so he could watch the world go by. But for Hector, the breeze coining from the air—conditioning vent was too cold. It did not remind him of the breeze from the mountains. They sat silently and he began to think about his father and about Tablones.

There was that time when we went fishing at the river, he thought. Papa wanted me to learn how to fish because it was something one should know how to do if one wanted to eat free fish. That is how he had put it, free fish. I did not think it was free if it took all day to catch one or two, but he said that it was free because it was something enjoyable and thrilling, and when something that you enjoy brings you food, then it is free. We sat on a log with our two long poles slanted out over the water. The fishing was to start early; I remember he said that if you got there early, then you would be able to trick the fish easier because they will have just gotten out of bed. I know that he was saying this because I was young, but back then I believed everything that he said. We sat, and I watched him and followed his instructions and he laughed when I could not get the worm on the hook. I laughed too. We had food with us, and we ate a big lunch though I do not remember what we had. Papa had some wine. He had his cigars too, and I think that that was one time when I wished I liked the smell of cigars. I liked the smell of the wine. I could have drank some if I wanted to, and he always asked me if I wanted some, but I did not like the way it made him act sometimes, so I said no thank you. He shrugged as he always did and tipped the bottle back slow. It was Paco's wine and it was said to be the best in the village. Paco. Papa loved Paco so much he named the dog after him. That was before Paco went crazy on his own wine. Yes, that was long before. Hector watched the coast pass by his window on the bus as he thought about the past. There were other times when Hector went fishing with his father. He did not think about all the things they had done together years before when he was his father's companion in all things. He did not think about the one time when they had gone fishing just after Jesus had left for the first time. That was when his father had told him that he was always to stay in Tablones. It was not a discussion, it was something that was to happen because it was a way of life and because it was to be believed and not thought about after it had been said. The father and son sat on the same log that they had sat on many times before and they had their poles pointed in the same way that they had before and they had the same lunch that they had had every time they went fishing. Jose had finished his bottle of Paco's wine and was sitting on the sand, leaning against the log where Hector sat. It was later in the day, and Jesus had not been home in many months. Jose watched his son digging his toes in the sand. He began to miss his other son, and he felt he had to make sure that this one would not leave as the other one had.

"Hector," he said, "you are better at fishing and farming than your brother had been when he was your age. You are. Do you want to know why?" Hector said nothing. "I'll tell you why. Because you do not look at the stars and see things that are not there. You, like me, do not care what is in the sky as long as it is not a storm. Why worry about that, huh? But you are like me, my son. Yes, I knew when you were born that you would be like me, maybe better. You are already a very good fisherman. You are better than those other lazy boys in the field." He paused and looked at his pole and then decided he did not care if it moved or not. It was becoming more difficult to see, and the pole would begin to always look as though there was a fish on the line. "And that is a good thing, Hector. That you are not like those lazy boys that you see in the village at times when they should be working—that is good. No, no, I do not have to threaten my boy with a whipping to get him to obey me. He loves his father and stays with him and does not have to be told, he does what he sees his father do. Do you know what that means to me?"

"I think so." Hector watched his pole as he listened to his father's words. He had always been a little proud that he made his father happy every day simply by staying with him and working.

Jose pulled in his line slowly as though he were pulling it in for the last time that day and he was hoping that he could lure one last fish to follow his bait.

"I think you know," he said. "You feel the way that I feel. You look like I did when I was your age. You are truly my son."

Hector had heard speeches like this before when his father had had too much wine with his friends in the village and he came home late and woke the whole family and took Hector outside for a walk. They had usually ended when Jose stopped walking and turned around. They would walk home together, but Hector knew that his father had ended the speech when he began to tremble as he had when his brother died. Hector watched his father pull in his line and he thought that he was done with the speech. But now Jose did not shake.

"You know what is wrong with Jesus?" he asked. "He is not one of us, that is what is wrong with him. But I will tell you something now that you must not ever tell your mother or your brother—Jesus did not hurt me as much as you might think when he left. No, not as much as you might think. And do you want to know why? I'll tell you: because I have you, Hector. That is why it did not hurt too much. Because I have you. And I'll tell you something else too. The day that you and I are not in this village together for a whole day is the day that one of us is dead. I know this because I know that you will never leave me." Jose stood facing his son. Neither moved for a long time. Hector finally looked up at his father and noticed that he looked like he was a hundred feet tall like a statue he had seen in a book once. He could not see his face, but he knew that his father was looking at him. Hector's line dipped three times. There was a fish on the other end, but neither the father nor the son took notice until the pole was pulled out of the sand and dragged into the water.

Hector did not care to remember that time when they fished. His father had scared him with his words, and he did not want to remember. He watched the coast and the coast towns and the cars go by from his window on the bus. He thought about Paco who had made the wine that had driven him crazy. He thought about the many times after he was crazy that people would go and spend time with him to make him feel better about being crazy and to keep him company. Jose was one of the men who had a key to the house that they locked from the outside so that Paco could not escape. He was not dangerous, but people feared him because he refused to wear clothes and because all he wanted to talk about was what would happen to those who refused to believe the truth. Jose said that it would be good for Hector to listen to Paco and consider his words. They went together one night to see the man who went crazy on his own wine and who could speak of nothing but the truth.

Jose walked ahead of his son and knocked on the door of the small house. "It is me," he said, "Jose. I have brought my son along to visit with you. May we come in?"

There was no answer for a long time, but finally they heard the man walk toward the door. They could hear that he had his face pressed up against the crack of the door, and he breathed heavily. "You have not brought your dog, have you?" he asked.

"No, I did not bring him," Jose said.

"Good. That dog of yours hates me."

Jose asked Paco to step away from the door so he could unlock it. They could hear the crazy man move away and slump onto the floor. They brought a lamp in with them because Paco did not have use for light. He had said this. He had said that you should not see if there is no light to see other than the sun. Hector followed his father, but he stopped short when the smell of the small, one room house hit him. Paco could not get out to go relieve himself, and the hole in the floor had filled long ago. Jose cursed himself for not bringing hay with him as he always did. He hung the lantern on a nail in the wall and asked Paco if it were okay for them to have a little light while they visited. He knew better than to be too kind to the crazy man though, as the last man to do so had received a severe bite to the ankle for, as Paco said, "treating a man like a little girl." Since there were no chairs in the room, the two visitors stood over the naked man as he sat in the middle of the room where there was no human waste. Flies covered the floor. Paco himself had more flies on him than Hector had seen on dead animals. He sat with his legs crossed and his head down. "What is your name, boy?" he asked Hector. "His name is Hect..."

"I did not ask you, Jose!" he lifted his head and shouted.

Hector took a step back and swallowed so that he did not throw-up.

"I asked you what your silly little name was."

"I am Hector."

"And I am Paco the dog. Has your father told you? I see things as they really are. I am like a dog. Not your dog, Jose. I am the only one who can see. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," Hector said.

"Then let me tell you some of what goes on in the light that you cannot see in. I'll tell you. Yes, yes. Let me first tell you that everything that I say is true and that you cannot tell me it is not. Do not speak, even when I am done, and I will have told you the truth. Do not tell anyone what I have said because then you will want to discuss it and all the truth will be taken away because you will be tempted to doubt what before you believed. Listen to this. You are not a boy or a man or even a plant. You are...what is your name?"

"Hector."

"You are Hector. That is all that you are. You are nothing more. I am Paco the dog. That is all."

Paco started to cry, and that is when Jose knew it was time to go. He put the wine and the bag of raw vegetables on the floor in front of the crazy man and walked outside with his son. They did not discuss what Paco had said because they feared him and his words. Hector had often thought about the crazy man though, and riding the bus, he could not help thinking that he was right when he said that he was what his name was and that is all. Not my father's young hero, he thought, just Hector.

Noribel tried to rest on the bus. She enjoyed the air-conditioning and had paid extra to ride this bus. Even so, the bus had been cheap compared to what it would have cost if they wanted to ride in a cab. It made no difference to Hector, so she chose the bus and hoped that the air-conditioning would make him happy. He had not said much since they had left the restaurant, less than the little he usually said, and she worried that he may be having second thoughts. She did not want to go home: to do so, she thought, would be shameful. So she sat next to her man and rode in silence as he did. She did not bring a newspaper or magazine as some of the other riders had, so she sat, like Hector, and thought about the places she left behind. She had wanted to be a dancer when she was younger. Her mother had said that it was a good thing to become if a person showed promise early enough. And that is what they had her going to school for when she went to school in San Juan. She did show promise, but soon changed her mind and wanted to become a singer. Again, her mother brought her to a teacher in San Juan and she took classes for a month or two. She showed promise, then she decided she wanted to do something else. Noribel thought about this early time in her life as she rode with Hector on the bus and she smiled. She remembered how she watched her dress twirl in the mirror of the dance studio and how she sang a beautiful song in English while her teacher played the piano. Her mother was there too. She would sit and watch Noribel as she stretched or warmed up, and when she sang, her mother would listen closely with her head down, careful not to think of the singer as her daughter. She did not care what her daughter wanted to become, as long as she showed promise early on and was able to decide on one area of discipline before it was too late and she was too old to get a good start. Noribel could never decide. She did not regret this as she rode on the bus, but she did like to wonder what it would have been like had she been able to decide early enough and had she been one of the lucky ones that make it to the world stage. But that was before, she thought, and now I know that there is as much time as I want to find what I am going to be great at. Him too maybe. The bus stopped to let people off in Carolina. Hector and Noribel sat and watched the people they had rode with get off and go to wherever it was that they were going. Hector did not care where they were going. He sat with his hands crossed and his pava tilted back and he pretended he had always ridden the bus through this town and he was one of the people that no one would be shocked to see. And although in Carolina he would not be very far out of place, he would not look like the people he was about to see in San Juan.

The bus stopped two or three more times to let people off and some on before Hector saw the skyline of the city for the first time. He could remember seeing pictures of the city in one of his brother's books, but he had not imagined that the buildings would be so big and so numerous. The streets were becoming denser and denser the closer they came to the high buildings, and he began to feel as though he were entering a place to be feared—a new place where the people acted fast and killed and were vicious and profoundly evil. Noribel watched him look out the window and she could feel his arm tense more and more the closer they got. It was late afternoon and the people were returning from work. The crowds and the noise of the streets overcame him and he thought he was going to faint. It was too fast, too bright and cold. He began to think he was in a bad fever dream that would soon close over him and choke the life from his chest. Noribel put her arm around him and tried to get him to look at her. But he would not look at anything so long as he was in this angry monster that they called San Juan. Never had he felt so far from Tablones. Never had he wished that he was back in the field with his father like he wished when he was on the bus. Never before did he care to think of his father's warning about the day that they do not sleep in the same village and what that would mean. But I am alive, he said to himself. The bus stopped at the station and a crowd rushed for the door. Hector saw this and passed out.

People were getting on the bus and they saw Noribel trying to bring Hector back to life. Some shook their heads because they thought that the boy had taken drugs. Others looked away so as not to make the girl feel bad about her friend. The driver saw what was going on in the mirror, and he stood and looked back at them with an alarmed expression. Hector finally came to, but he was disoriented and he did not know where he was. The driver sat back in his seat.

Noribel lead Hector out into the street and then away quickly from the crowd at the station. He still did not look like he knew where he was or what he was doing there. She sat him down on a bench across the street from the station and began to feel that he was not going to make it. His face was pale and his eyes were glazed over and he kept swallowing and shaking. Noribel began to think that he did look like an addict. I have to find somewhere to bring him to his senses, she thought. She saw a taxi and waved him down. The street was packed with cars and people, and it was a long time until the car could reach the sidewalk. "Hector," she said, "we're going to ride in a car now; is that okay?" He nodded and she knew that he was getting better. She told the driver to take her to a hotel that she and her mother had stayed at when they came to the city. It was a good hotel and it did not cost too much to stay there this time of year. Hector began to look better and he watched the people and the cars of the city with less alarm. Maybe he did not like the air-conditioning, she thought. He has never felt it or the ride of a bus before, so maybe he will be better in a car even if it does cost more. She could not stop worrying about him though, and she watched him like a mother will watch her sick child.

Hector had still not said a word by the time that they were in their room at the hotel. They were not far from the resort district of the city, and Noribel felt that he would feel safe in a section of the city where there was not as much noise and not so many people on the street. Hector finally did relax when he lay on the bed. It was not like the bed that he had at home.

This one was twice the size. He lay across it the wrong way and closed his eyes. He bagan to think about how Noribel had checked them in as a married couple, and he did not know why she had done this. He knew absolutely nothing about staying in a hotel. He had not even considered that they would sleep anywhere but outside the entire time; perhaps, the rest of their lives.

Noribel took off her dress and prepared to take a shower. She walked around in front of Hector and looked down at him and smiled.

"Would you like to take a shower with me, young man," she asked as she smiled at him.

"Take a what?" Hector asked.

"A shower. You know, like you take to get clean."

"You mean a bath."

"No, I mean a shower. Haven't you ever taken a shower before?"

Hector stared at her body and began to feel much less afraid. He longed for her like he did any time she was bold enough to stand before him naked.

"I have had baths, if that is what you mean." Noribel had not thought about how he had bathed, and because he had always smelled good, she took it for granted that ^" his house had a shower. Now, watching him struggle to understand what she was saying, she felt bad about questioning him. She walked into the bathroom and turned on the water.

"Why don't you come in here and I'll show you what a shower is. "

Hector followed her into the shower and learned what it was to take a shower when there is someone there to help you. He watched as she spread soap from a bottle all over her tan body. She had her eyes closed as she let the water run over her face and she opened them through the water and looked at him. He learned very quickly how to take a shower.

After they had showered, Noribel ordered dinner from the front desk as Hector slept. It was still not late in the evening, but the day had been very trying for the him, and he fell asleep easily as soon as he lay on the bed. Noribel did not want to take any more chances with him, so she turned the air-conditioning in the room down very low and closed the shades. When dinner came, Hector was not easily wakened. She felt bad about waking him, but she knew that he would have to eat if he was going to go back out into the crowded streets in the morning. The dinner was on a cart in the room and there was a great deal to eat. He will eat it all, she thought. He must eat like a horse to have such a healthy body. She looked at him sleeping and thought that he looked even better than the statues she had seen with her mother at the museum. His body is absolutely perfect, she thought. So perfect, I probably should not take him out in public too much. Who knows, he may see a — better looking girl than me looking at him and decide that he wants her instead. She smiled as she looked at his peaceful face and thought, no, he is too good of a little jibaro to do that to me. He will stay with me forever. Hector finally woke up and looked around the room. It did not take long for his eyes to wander away from Noribel and straight to the cart full of food. He ate everything that she did not want, and laid back down. "Now I feel better," he said. And with that he soon fell back into a long sleep.

Hector had a dream. He dreamt he was on his back and there was a strange ceremony being performed over him. The lights were dim, it was night, and he felt an urge to get up and run though he was not scared. The people around him wore masks of bright colors and menacing expressions. He watched them dance. A drum beat came from his left side and he knew without having to look that it was Jesus beating the drum. The beat alternated with the dance. Jesus appeared in front of him looking down with a smile. It was a kind smile though he still had the urge to run if he could decide to stand which he could not. Jesus was the beat and the standing smiler. He stood over him waving side to side with the beat of the drum that Hector knew Jesus was playing off to the left and behind the people who wore masks and danced. Jesus asked many questions, his voice rising at the end of each, but Hector could not understand what he was saying.

The drum beat louder with each successive question as Jesus' questions became more severe and his face less amiable. The clouds whirled around behind his head like the cloth of his mother's dress waved in the breeze, and the sun rose and fell in and out of the sky like it was being pulled up and down by the beat of the drum. Still Hector did not really want to run but he wanted to be with the others in the dance so he could be a part of the beat and see why the sun rose and fell and why the drum was being beat by Jesus who was standing Jesus in front and on top over head and asking question that could not be understood though it was clear that it was important that he answer them as quickly as possible so that the sun could go down to stay and so he could rise and join the dance. But he could not rise. Jesus asked: "What do you how do you why do you follow what you do?"

"Because you told me," Hector answered.

"When do thee where thee thee mind thee this?"

"Because it is right."

"Right?"

Jesus howled the word, right . It rang so loud that it stopped the dance and the beating of the drum and the sun stayed up high in the sky right over Jesus as he leaned down and stared at his brother .

"Right," Jesus said," is not right when you do not know day from night and when there is not time to run, it is then that you have begun. Follow? No! No and no and no again to you!"

Hector felt as though a rope had been cut that had held him for centuries. He jumped to his feet and took his brother by the neck and began to whip him around in circles. But his brother turned to a sheet of colored cloth that wave in the wind by a mother's tired feet. Jesus was back by the drum laughing. "You are dead," he said to Hector. "You are as dead as poor Paco who you left behind to be eaten by Paco the crazy man who called himself a dog because Papa gave him the dead dog in a bag when you were there and he gave him a bottle of wine to wash it down with. But you? No no...you are dead."

Hector woke in a sweat. He could not believe what he had heard Jesus say, and he thought he might be actually dead. He did not recognize his surroundings: for all he knew, from what he could see, there was no evidence that he had been asleep in his bed and there was no reference point around him to tell him that he was in a safe place and not in just another part of the dream that he was not sure was a dream, was not sure was over. He sat up in the bed breathing hard and looking for something in the room that would bring him back from where he was. The pava hung on the bedpost. It had not been in the dream. He felt around him and he felt Noribel. She had not been in the dream. He listened for the drums and watched for the rising and falling sun, and it was a long time before he could stop thinking about what his brother had said about Paco and the crazy man and the idea that he was dead. He did not know what dead was, so he could not be sure that he was not. But he did eventually fall back asleep as dreamers do when the images of what they have seen in the night fade back in the memory as easily and as smoothly as they had risen.

By morning Hector did not remember anything except that he had been awake for a short time in the night because he had had a dream about death. It does not matter now, he thought. He looked for Noribel who was in the shower again, this time alone, and he listened to the sounds of the early morning traffic outside his window. The traffic sounded loud to him, but, he thought, it is because I have never been in a place where there are a great many cars and trucks. Noribel called his name in an asking tone. I do not want to be wet yet, he thought. Right now I do not care how she looks with her hair over her face and the soap bubbles over her breasts and stomach. He stood and walked to the window and pushed the shade aside and watched the cars and people down below in the light of early morning.

Noribel knew that they could catch a bus at a stop two blocks from the hotel, and she planned to get a short breakfast for Hector before he would have to ride again. She did not know that he had no fear now that he had seen a night pass without harm coming to them. She did not know that he would only be scared of a thing, anything, only once, and then he would never fear that thing again. Once the danger had passed, in his mind, it was passed for good. He respected the power of the city, but now he felt he would be comfortable on a bus no matter where it took them. He felt ashamed of what had happened the day before at the end of the bus ride, and he tried to assure Noribel that it would not happen again. He brought up the subject at breakfast.

"I do not think that I will fall asleep again on the bus like I did yesterday," he said as he drank his coffee.

"I hope not," Noribel said.

"Well, maybe I was not used to the way people live here and

that is why I fell asleep as I did."

"I think it may have been that you are not used to the air-conditioning, that's all."

"Maybe. But it will not happen again, that much I do know. I feel much better now that we are together and we are on our way. "

"Yes. But I think we should get you some clothes so that you will feel more a part of the people you are going to see and meet. We'll get you some shoes too."

"Do you think I should wear shoes?" Hector asked. He did not expect the subject of shoes to come up, and he did not know how to take it. Well that will really be it, he thought. Then I really will be like Jesus. I'm glad Papa will not be there to see me put them on. He would probably spit in my pava.

They finished their breakfast talking about what they would get before they would begin the next part of their journey. It would take a few hours to get to Arecibo, and it was agreed that it would be best to enter that city with Hector dressed as a young student rather than a young farmer from the country. He made an attempt during the conversation to assure Noribel that he would repay her all the money that she spent on him, but she laughed and waved her hand and said that her money was his money and that they had agreed to share everything they had or would ever had when they had made plans to leave their homes. Hector felt very glad that she felt this way because he did not have any money nor had he ever. All that he had ever had was the ability to do what he was told to do by his father and to be content doing it. He laughed thinking about money.

The sun was not out when they got to the bus stop. Clouds and wind formed high arches in the sky overhead. Hector now carried a new bag with new clothes. His feet wore shoes for the first time. He wore long pants and a shirt that was made of a material he had never felt. He was not allowed to wear his hat though he kept it in his bag with the new clothes. I would probably have to tear it away from him as he slept Noribel thought as they sat on the bench waiting. If I hid it, he would search the rest of his life if it took that long. She smiled and shook her head. Jibaro. Hector sat bent over looking at his shoes and curling his toes around to feel them as much as he could. He felt like a child who gets to wear his father's suit ^^ for the first time, only different: his father never wore a suit, and it was certain that he would not like seeing his son in shoes. But during the day, at a time when he was not going to have any bad dreams, Hector could afford to feel good about something that would make his father feel bad. Yes, he thought, I will wear shoes if I want to. And it was there, at that moment, that Hector felt truly rebellious toward his father for the first time in his life. It came easy, and he did not look back on the though1'with regret. He was becoming free from what he had never had any reason to believe there should be freedom from. Liking his shoes and not caring what his father would think made him happy about the trip for the first time. He felt free and strong and happy, and he could not wait to see what there was to see in Arecibo.

Chapter 6

Hector was a new man. There was no gradual building up of resentment toward his father, no trial and error to his rebellion, no accumulation of injustices once lived with and now confronted; no, there was just a young man from the country having a secret victory over something he did not have to think about fighting. He won, and he knew straight off that he had won. And it may not have been just the shoes or just the trip or even the happiness after having won or even the sum of all things that lead up to him winning. He beat a thing that fought him though he did not know it; a thing that had hung like a cloud over his young head while he toiled away unsuspecting and without a care. Maybe that is why he smiled on the bus—maybe he smiled because he found everything all at once. And maybe it could have been true too that there was never anything to beat or to lose to that made a difference to him. So when it came, it came like a delicious treat from heaven. It rained and rained down on him like the rain that washed the dirty commuter bus that they now rode in to Arecibo, like the driving rain that fell on the hotel they had rustled through back in San Juan, like the rain that poured over Jose's head back in the fields of Tablones.

The bus kept on going. Noribel saw the change come over Hector and she eyed him suspiciously.

She turned to him and said, "Are you all right?" But she said it in a way that is not a question but is more like a criticism.

"Sure," he said. "Why, can't I be in a good mood? I told you I felt better. You should be glad." Hector's confidence grew out of his reservation like a flower out of dung. Where before he would have shrugged, now he felt he could and should say whatever came into his head to say. It was like the exposure to people and modern society had given him a whole new set of ideas as well as a whole new way of presenting them. He took Noribel in his arm quickly and asked her if she was too cold. He asked softly and pushed his nose into her hair to smell her perfume. Ahhh, that's good, he thought. I wish we had the whole bus to ourselves. But Noribel did not like the idea of his passions rising on a crowded bus headed for Arecibo in a down pour. Now it was she who blushed at her mate's advances.

"No. Hector," she whispered with the emphasis falling on the "tor" part of his name, "people will see."

Noribel was, by this time, completely without an idea as to why he was behaving as though he had always been from the city. She could not explain why he wore a look of utter confidence when the day before he behaved as though he were ready to run back to Tablones wringing his pava with fear. He settled back in his seat, smiled, closed his eyes, and laughed lightly.

The old bus splashed on and the rain poured on and the wipers in front of the driver hished and pooed as he made his way toward Arecibo. Not a passenger, not a one had pulled the rusty cable that would have made a buzzing that would have made the driver stop that would have let one of them or more than one of them out into the rain and into the street. To Hector this ride seemed the exact opposite of the ride from Fajardo to San Juan; he did not feel scared and there was no air-conditioning breathing cold air on the back of his neck. Why did it have to be there, he asked himself thinking about how he had not thought to get up and move to another seat. We'll see if that happens again. Next time I will switch with one of the other riders, and we will sit where I am more comfortable. She won't mind, she is with me—I am not with her. I should make that better known. But I think she knows. I think she always knew. He pulled the front of his shirt out of his pants to see if he liked how that looked better. But to Noribel, he was acting like a crazy person. She watched him change expression as he thought of different things, and she noticed that he did not care to look back to her as she stared.

They had already been on the bus for an hour or so when Noribel began to wonder if her man had eaten something that had poisoned him. But we ate the same things, she thought. How come I have not been changed into a crazy person? In her bag there was a box of chocolate her mother had given her. She took the box out and asked if he wanted any. She thought that maybe some sugar would make him feel more like himself.

"Hector," she said aloud, louder than a whisper, "would you like some chocolate?'

"Why are you talking to me like I am a child?" he asked. "If I want chocolate, I'll ask for some. But don't treat me like I am your child."

Hector did not look at Noribel when he spoke. Instead, he looked straight ahead and unconsciously watched the wipers go back and forth. He was not angry, but he had settled it in his head some miles back that he would not be treated as though he were a child. He wanted to get that straight right away. But Noribel did not know this and she took this new tone and manner of his as a sign that there was indeed something bad happening to him. The rain continued to fall in enormous drops that pounded the roof of the bus and made visibility difficult to the point of nearly impossible. The driver kept his eyes firmly on the road in case a farm animal or a person wandered in his path. This had happened before on this road. The man that was killed was drunk.

But Hector was not drunk and he was not in the road where he might get killed by a bus and he was not at all crazy. He was young, and all that that meant at the time they rode the bus to Arecibo was that he had found a new way of looking at the world through new eyes lodged in a newly freed head and he was on an adventure that he did not know until recently was the highlight of his life. And Noribel had to ride out the rest of the way unsure and wavering through her worries and her theories and feeling her heart beat to the beat of the timeless wipers.

Chapter 7

The heavy rain began to slow. Hector and Noribel now looked at each other and thought about how the journey would be different since Hector had found his new power. Arecibo lay ahead; there was not much time, or so Noribel thought, to find out what was the reason for the sudden change in Hector. As the rain continued to fall, the two young lovers thought about how different the way would be since the change.

Hector was still savoring his new-found independence. He watched out the window for the first sign of the city. He could not wait to visit more shops and find more clothes like the ones they had bought in San Juan. He would require another pair of shoes, or maybe a pair of boots like the ones he had tried on but decided against at the last minute. He thought he would also like to go out at night after they had eaten a big dinner. Noribel had told him that there were clubs in the cities where a young couple could go to dance and drink. She had said that these clubs were often very crowded with people of their age who attended the schools in the area and that these people were fun to be around sometimes. Hector had asked how she had known this, but she had shrugged and changed the subject. Hector also had asked how she had gotten the money for the journey, and again she had quickly changed the subject. But he was not so stupid that he did not know when a person was avoiding questions; he had seen his brother do it often enough, and Jose had said that to do this was a sign that a person was dishonest.

He thought about the money and the clubs they might go to and decided that it was time to hear how she had gotten the money and when she had gotten to know so much about the clubs of the cities.

"Sweetheart," he began in a soft tone, "you never told me how you were able to get enough money for the both of us to travel."

Noribel did not know exactly how to answer the new Hector, but she knew he would no longer accept her avoidance of the topic. She decided that perhaps now he would be better able to understand what she said and not be a simple country judge for her more sophisticated background and her families covert wealth. She turned to look at him as she spoke so as to gauge the effect of her words and shut down or distill as the situation dictated.

"Okay," she said, "I'll tell you straight out how I got the money. And, if after that you still want to hear how I know so much about the city, then I might as well tell you that too."

Hector nodded and said, "Go on."

"First I should tell you about my parents and how we came to live in Quebrada Seca. My mother was a teacher in San Juan — before I was born. She grew up there. Her parents were, well, not exactly rich, but not poor either. They made sure that their daughter, my mother, was educated in the finest schools available at that time. So, they sent her to private school in San Juan and then college in the states. She lived in the states for a time after she finished school, then she moved back home to teach in the San Juan school system. She lived well and did not bother herself with finding a man. She was, and she still is, a very independent person. Anyway, she taught for ten years living alone not two miles from where her parents lived, and she told me that she enjoyed her freedom and thought she would probably live this way for the rest of her life. She did not want to marry because most of the men she met wanted her to follow their rules and raise her children. Then, when she was convinced she would live by herself forever, she met my father. He was also a teacher, but he taught at the university in Carolina and he was much older. Well, to make a long story short, they fell in love and got married. They lived in happiness for some years before she found that she was pregnant with me. By this time she was already forty years old and the doctors told her that she may not live if she decided to give birth to me. As you can see, she had me anyway."

"But that does not explain how you got the money for the trip," Hector said.

"I'm getting to that. My parents had both lived very frugal lives both before and after they got married. My father had been raised in Quebrada Seca, and he had little use for the money he made at the university. My mother had gotten all of her parent's money when they died, and she did not spend any of it. Add to that the money she made from teaching, and you have a great deal of money. My mother had always approved of you, and when I told her that I wanted to travel with you, she gave me the money without me having to ask."

"Didn't she want to know if we intended to get married?" Hector asked.

"No. She said that if I loved you enough to travel to the states with you, then I had her blessing."

"So she just gave you a pile of money?"

"Yes."

"And you say we are going to the states?" Hector asked as though he were conducting an interrogation. He did not intend to sound as though he was angry, but it was the only way he knew how to ask a series of questions. He had seen his father ask questions of Jesus in this same manner, and he imitated without thinking about it.

"Mother gave me four thousand dollars for the trip. She said that when that runs out, we are on our own. She said that we should be able to live off that if we watch what we spend, and that there are many good people in the states who will help us to find jobs. I thought you wanted to go there to see your brother and to see where he goes to school. Mother said that she has never been to the North, but the people are probably the same there as they were where she lived. You do want to go there, don't you?" She asked as if she knew he was going to say no, and fear began to build inside her. His questions had added to her fear that he would want to go somewhere other than the states, and she knew that the trip would be ruined before they got off the island if he insisted on going somewhere else, or if he decided he wanted to spend too much time wasting money seeing his homeland.

Hector sat considering what he had just heard as his father had considered what Jesus had said on those first nights when his brother had returned home full of stories and determined to tell how great his life was now that he was away from the farm and the old way of life.

"Well," Hector finally said as he stared at the back of the woman's head in the seat in front of him, "we might as well go to the U.S.but we do not have to see my brother right away. I think we should try and get settled first. Perhaps we can get married soon after we get there so that we do not live in sin. And yes, we should be able to get work. With you as my interpreter, we will tell them that I can do any labor all day every day. There must be farms there that I can work on."

Noribel smiled and relaxed her shoulders against the seat. Of all the things she had heard him say since they first met, nothing had been as sweet. Yes, she though, I will marry you if that is what you want. Yes, the new Hector is still the simple Hector that I fell in love with. She moved closer to him as the buildings outside the bus became more numerous and the traffic alongside became thicker.

"Yes," she said, "we can do whatever you want when we get there. We'll be just fine...better than fine; we'll be great." And she closed her eyes and pictured their new life.

The transition from the old, timid Hector to the new, outwardly independent Hector had its effect, and now the two were fit and able to adjust. Noribel followed Hector off the bus and quickly into a cafe a short distance from the stop. They were in a section of Arecibo where Noribel knew her way around quite well, and she had hoped that he would head for this particular cafe for it was her mother's favorite and they had always started their visits to this city with a big meal there. Hector stood for a moment in between the rows of booths. He did not, though he had the will to do so, have an idea of how to seat them properly. She would still be in charge of many things. That is all right, he thought, I have a great deal of time, the rest of our lives, to learn how to pick out a place to sit in a restaurant. Noribel did not pick up on his lack of experience, and she simply strode past him and sat in the farthest booth from the door next to the window and opposite the entrance to the rest rooms. That was where she and her mother had always sat. She placed her bag on the seat of the booth before she sat down; sliding in next to the bag, her eyes were on Hector. Hector returned her gaze, but he misinterpreted it to mean that she wanted to become intimate there in the cafe. He stood for a moment not knowing what to do, then he bowed his head, took off his shoes, and started to undo his pants. Noribel could not get out any words until he was almost unzipped.

"What do you think you are doing," she gasped. All thoughts of her mother sitting across from her on their many visits disappeared.

"I thought you wanted..." Hector blushed and looked slightly confused as a waitress walked up from behind him and cleared her throat. He quickly re-zipped his pants and sat opposite Noribel.

"Why did you think I wanted you to take your clothes off?" Noribel asked after the waitress had left.

"I don't know," Hector said and he laughed. I thought you were looking at me the way you do when you are naked."

"Well, I was. But I didn't mean for us to...I wasn't thinking about here and now. I was just looking, that's all. You just caught me." She was a little embarrassed by what he had done, but it did not matter; all that mattered to her was that he was happy and comfortable and going along with her plan.

She looked in his eyes and shook her head. My little jibaro, she thought. All you think about is me naked and eating large amounts of food. But Hector had not thought about food yet; he was thinking about what it would have been like if she had done the same and they had made love there on the table. To hell with the waitress, he thought.

Hector had not eaten much in the cafe, and he had not felt like eating since he had looked down and saw his shoes and felt his new freedom back on the bench in San Juan. He also did not have to think about his freedom; he felt it through his whole body. Everything about his person seemed to change as time went on—even the way he felt toward Noribel. He now felt as though he were walking on air as he had when he had dreamt of their journey by the brook the first night he was away from home. And he looked at Noribel with more lust than he had, with more steam in his lungs, and with more heat in his heart. He longed for her like he had never been with a woman and was desperate to experience love-making for the first time. As they walked, he could feel the pressure to hold her build within him.

And they were finally in Arecibo. They walked down a palm-lined avenue amid the crowds of locals and tourists. They looked like two young students, as Noribel had hoped they would look, and they mutually felt like singing as they went. For Hector, everything was new; for Noribel it was new too, but it was also a stroll down an old avenue she had seen when she was with her mother, her hero, and the image of them walking together made her feel slightly homesick for the first time. They reached the end of the avenue as it ended when it reached the harbor. The sun was out now, and they faced the light as they sat on a bench with the harbor before them. This was the first time Hector had seen ships from such a short distance and he was amazed at their size. But he did not ask questions about them. He started to, but he checked himself when he thought that they would sound like the questions of a child. Maybe that is why she has treated me like a child, he thought. Maybe I sounded like one and acted like one. With this lesson learned in his head, he decided that questions about this or about that which he had not seen before would have to be held until he could learn the answers for himself. And Noribel thought too; she wondered which of these they would ride to the states.

Noribel had reserved a room at a hotel where she and her mother had often stayed. When she called from the hotel lobby in San Juan, she had told Hector that she was calling to get information about Arecibo; this was before he had changed. Now she did not have to hide her plans. She told Hector that she had chosen a hotel that she knew to be good and not too expensive, and that they would stay there until they could arrange to take one of the boats to the states. It all sounded simple enough to him, so he went along with the plan and did not ask questions. They got up from the bench where they sat looking at the harbor and walked along the boardwalk that lead to the park and then to the street where the hotel was.

Hector had not thought about how Noribel knew so much about these cities and the ways of city people since he had asked the questions about the money. Now walking on the boardwalk, he thought again of how well she seemed to know where she was going and how easily she walked among the crowds of people. Surely she has spent a great deal more time here than she has lead me to believe, he thought. Perhaps she lived here for a time. Perhaps not too long ago. She must have seen other boys while she was here, how could it be otherwise? He decided to ask.

"Noribel,• he began, "when you were here last, did you have a boyfriend?" He did not stop to ask his question.

"Why do you ask?" Noribel asked not knowing how to take his directness.

"I was just thinking that if you knew this place so well, you must have spent some time here. And if you spent some time here, then you must have met other boys.

Noribel knew she would eventually have to answer such questions, but she had not expected him to wonder about such things for a while. The old Hector, she thought, had no need for this. They continued walking at the same slow pace, and she was careful not to hesitate before answering. Instead, she tried to play down the importance of the subject.

She said, "If you want to know if I have had any boyfriends since I met you, the answer is no...of course not."

"But I don't mean since you met me,' he said. "I want to know if you had other boyfriends before you met me."

"Why do you want to know?'

'Because I do," Hector said as he became more irritated at her avoidance.

"Okay," she said, "you are not my first boyfriend. There, now do you know what you wanted to know."

Hector had not hoped she would say this, and he became nervous and did not know what question to ask next. They were nearing the park, and he waited until he had gotten to an empty bench before he stopped and sat down. Noribel did not like the looks of this. She knew that his questions would now be more specific. She sat next to him and tried to decide whether or not to tell him the whole truth or just some of the truth.

"I should just ask what you know I have to ask eventually before we get married," Hector paused before going on, "because if I do not ask you now, I will have to live with the truth, no matter what it may be, after we are married. So tell me, was I the first boy that you took your dress off for that time on the beach?"

Hector was scared now. He did not want to ever know the answer if the answer was no, but he could not stop himself from asking once he had started his line of questioning. Noribel knew the answer well enough; she would have to say yes if they were to stay together.

"Yes, Hector," she said, "I would not have done that with any boy if I did not think that he was the only one I would ever have in my life. If I did not love you, would I have done that?

If you were not my first, would I have left my family to start a new life with you in a strange country? I don't think these questions are very nice, you know. Why don't you ask me if I ever killed a person while you are at it?"

Noribel started to cry and Hector regretted having started the whole affair. He did not know how to feel, so he sat still and stared down at his feet. I wish I had just trusted her from the start, he thought. He tried to put his arm around her, but she would not let him. She sat looking out over the harbor. The tears filled her eyes, and she no longer knew what she wanted to do. Hector had never seen her cry before, and he did not know how to talk to her, or whether or not he should stand and ask if she wanted to get going. They sat for a long time, neither knowing what to do, before Noribel stood and started walking toward the hotel. Well, she thought that is over. I did what was best, and now it is over. The tears dried, and she began to feel better.

Chapter 8

The night before in the hotel room in Arecibo had been much like the night they had spent in San Juan; only this time, Hector had been the one. Now, sitting in their cabin while Noribel stowed her bags, Hector began to feel uneasy about their future.

Once the boat was out of the harbor and headed for open water, Hector knew there was no turning back. He had felt this before, but now the feeling was more final, more absolute, and he did not know where his mind was going to go. He felt as though he were in a perpetual dream; a fantasy made by someone else's hand, and the feeling made him confused and tired. He lay on his cot as the waves sway the boat side to side, and there was an element to the motion that seemed to sway him as though he had been swayed this way before. He did not know what to make of this, and when Noribel said she was going to go up on deck, he told her that he was going to stay where he was and rest for a while. A feeling came over him as he lay on the cot; a feeling of hate and rage that he did not know what to make of filled his chest, and he breathed slowly and heavily like an angry lion.

The motion of the boat swayed him into a half sleep stage. He felt as though he were sleeping, but he knew he was not. He saw himself in his mind as another man, one that looked like him but was not him. Maybe it is me, he thought.

The chugging moan of the engine was like the beat of drums in his mind. He waited to see what the man would do as he watched. He felt as though he were transported to another time and place though the place seemed familiar, and the time seemed like now. He rolled over in his cot. The man in his mind turned around. He put his right arm behind his head, and the man did the same. It is me, he thought. He became the man in his mind.

Hector stood in the middle of a battlefield and looked around. He was the only one left standing, the only survivor of a great battle, and he felt glorious. The sun was low on the field, and he felt its warmth on his face. A slight film of sweat covered his body, and he noticed that he had blood on his chest and on his legs. A fallen man moaned nearby. He still had his sword in his hand, and he could not stop himself from searching for the wounded man. His anger rose again, but he was not able to check it, or to understand it, and he looked around furiously for the man who dared to be alive on his field of glory. The sun shone off shields and puddles of fresh blood. There must have been hundreds, maybe thousands of dead men in the trampled grass around him. He could not stop himself from searching for the man that was still alive.

Hector stopped walking and listened for the moan. He stood 1 with his long hair blowing back, blown by the wind that carried the smell of death, and he heard the moan again from a body not ten feet from where he stood. He rushed over to the man and kicked his limp body over so that he could see the shield on his chest. Without hesitation, he pushed the blade through the man's chest and into the blood-soaked ground. He could not believe that he had just killed a man, but he did not know how to stop himself. Now he was two men—the Hector that lay on a cot on a boat bound for Fort Lauderdale, and a savage killer on an ancient battlefield. But the half dream did not last, and he passed from that scene into a deep sleep.

When he woke, he was still alone in their cabin. He did not know how long he had slept, and he hoped that they were almost to the U.S. He did not remember the dreams he had had while he slept; all that remained was a fear that he had done something terribly wrong a very long time ago. But this feeling did not make any sense to him, and his mind soon wandered to thoughts of Tablones and the life he had left behind.

There were some things about his youth that he did not offer to tell Noribel. He thought about the time Jesus had come home in the summer and Jose had offered to let Hector take some time off from work so that he could spend some time with his brother. Jose had said that he was fortunate to have a brother to spend time with, and it would be too bad if they did not take every opportunity they had to get to know one another before they were old and married and set in their own, separate ways. Jesus saw this as his chance to tell his younger brother all the things a young man should know. He thought that it was time that his brother learned how to be close to a woman and what to do when his passion rose. But Hector had thought that it would be a chance to fish the river and sleep in the sun. He did not think of women much, and when he did, it was in a way that he did not want to pursue. His thoughts of women had always ended when he saw his mother's face on the girl he was thinking about. Once he had pictured Ida from down the road with no clothes on, but when she turned in his mind, she was his mother. He did not tell Jesus about this though, and when he said that they were going to go into the center of the village after dinner one night, he did not think that they were going there so he could learn about women.

Jesus smelled of perfume to Hector as they walked toward town in the late afternoon. He wore a brightly colored shirt of red, green and orange, and his pants looked like they were part of his body. Hector smiled and wanted to laugh as he walked behind. They did not live far from the center of the village, and the walk took less than an hour. We could have ridden the burro, Hector thought as he looked at his brother's tall boots plopping the dust of the road as he walked. He caught up to Jesus and walked by his side.

"Why are we going to the center?" Hector asked when he had reached his brother.

"You'll see," he said without looking. "I have to show you something." Jesus smiled as he thought to himself for a moment.

"But whatever you do, you must not tell Papa. And that means don't tell Mother either."

Hector could not imagine what it was that Jesus knew about in the center of the village that he did not, but he was willing to see it whatever it was. Nothing could be worse than Paco the crazy man, he thought. I hope he does not take me to see him. If he does, I'll just tell him I have already seen him and go back home. But Jesus did not know about Paco other than he had gone crazy, and what he intended to show his brother would not make him sick or scared.

They walked into the center of the village and stopped by the porch of the general store. Jesus wore an expression of anticipation; he looked as though he were preparing to commit a crime, but Hector knew that his brother was far from the type who did such things. Jesus leaned against one of the poles of the porch and lit a cigarette. He offered one to his brother and smiled when he did not take from the extended pack.

Jesus said, "What is wrong, little one? Don't you enjoy a cigarette after dinner?'

Hector knew that his brother knew he did not care for tobacco in any form and that he was trying to make fun of him by pretending that he was childish and scared to smoke because he thought his father would find out. There were a couple other, older boys sitting on the porch in the shadow, and Hector heard one of them laugh at Jesus' remark.

"Hey. Cado," Jesus said to one of the boys on the porch, "can you believe this little jibaro brother of mine? I'm takin' him to see the goose. You do want to see the goose, don't you Hector?"

Hector did not know what the goose was, and he became nervous when the two boys laughed hard at the plan. But he did not want his older brother to think he was ignorant or scared, so he nodded his head. "Sure, I'll take a look at the goose."

The three older boys heard this and laughed very hard. Hector looked from the boys to his brother, but Jesus was bent over with laughter and would not relieve the boy's feeling of alienation.

"Not see," Jesus said after he caught his breath, "do!"

"Yea," said one of the other boys, "you can see the goose any time, but Jesus here has made arrangements for you to do more than see. Isn't that right, Jesus? Sure my friend. You are going to find a whole new meaning for the word goose."

The three boys laughed again. Jesus looked at his watch and flicked his cigarette into the road. "It's time to go," he said. The two boys stood and put their hands in their front pockets and flapped them out as they laughed. "Good luck, jibaro," the one Jesus had called Cado said. So Jesus knows these boys, Hector thought. These are the ones Papa told me were no good. He turned from the boys on the porch and saw that Jesus was already down the road.

Hector followed his brother down a narrow road that lead to the river before it cut back to the main road. There were no farms on the road to speak of, and he had never had reason to walk down it. Jesus looked back to make sure that his brother was following, and he waited. Hector caught him, and Jesus said that they were almost there and that he better be ready because it is not every day a young man gets to see the goose for free. Hector could still not understand what was so special about this goose that made it different from the thousands of geese he had seen at the pond next to the field in winter. Maybe it is a giant goose that someone down here owns, he thought. Maybe he will only show it to you if you pay him and that is how he makes money without having to work in the fields. He laughed to himself as he thought about such a ridiculous way of making a living. He thought about how Paco the crazy man would be the type to do such a thing, but he could not allow himself to think about that man for long because to do so was said to bring bad luck to a person. Jesus stopped by a path that lead into the thick brush and he looked at his brother from top to bottom.

"You sure you are up to this, jibaro?" he asked.

"I wish you would not call me that," Hector said.

"Okay big man," Jesus said. "You just better not waste my money by running off when you see what I have done for you."

Jesus led the way down the path, clearing the overhanging branches out of the way as he went. Hector followed close behind and saw that there was a small house with a broken down porch set back in the shadows of the thick trees. The vegetation was so thick that there was a light on in the house though out by the main road the sun was still up. Jesus walked up to the door and knocked.

"Who's there?" a voice from inside asked. There was music, faintly audible, and the voice sounded to Hector like that of a young girl.

"It's me," Jesus said, "Jesus. Remember? I told you I was going to bring my brother over."

Hector stood a few feet back from the porch while Jesus was right up to the door. The door opened a crack but not enough for Hector to see who was inside. He could see that his brother had handed something to the person before the door closed. Jesus turned around with a smile and waved for Hector to come up on the porch.

"Everything is all set," he said. "Now remember, don't tell anyone that I brought you here. And another thing: if things don't go well, don't hit her or say anything mean to her. You understand? We don't want to ruin it for everybody." Hector still did not know what was happening, but he agreed that he would not tell anyone and he would not hit her, whoever she was. He opened the door slowly and walked inside as Jesus walked away.

It was Ida Ruiz, the girl he had often tried to picture in his head with no clothes on. She sat on an old, ripped sofa with a radio on a table next to her and a bottle of rum on a table in front of her. She was not wearing any clothes. Hector stood for a long time looking at her, but she did not return his look. She had seen him before, as he had seen her, and it was clear to him that she did not like the idea of having to do whatever it was she was doing. He took off his pava and sat on a folding chair by the door.

"I came to see the goose," he said.

Ida looked at him slowly and sat up. "What did you call me?" she asked.

"No, no," Hector said seeing that she was getting mad about something, "I didn't call you anything. I came to see the goose you have. My brother told me he was taking me to see the goose.

"You stupid idiot, she said. "Those idiots call me the goose. But you better not do it again, or you can leave right now and get nothing."

"What am I supposed to get?" he asked, but he had no sooner said it when Ida took a drink from the bottle of rum and sat back and moved her left leg high up over the back of the sofa. He did not have to ask again what it was his brother had bought for him. So this is it, he thought. This is what those boys were laughing about at the store. But knowing what was going on and doing what was expected of him were two different things. He decided to talk to her as he thought about what to do.

"Is that rum you have?" he asked.

"Yea," she said, "do you want some before we start?"

"No thanks, I don't like rum."

He could not get over how young she looked without her clothes on. She had dressed like a woman ever since he could remember, and she was not more than a year older than him. His father had not told him about women that sell their bodies to men for a night, so he did not know what to do or what not to do. He did not think that what he was witnessing was necessarily wrong, it was just that it was something he did not have any knowledge of. He did know, however, that she was naked for a reason and he knew how it made him feel to see her.

"Why don't you come sit over here next to me," she said. "I know what to do for you. You won't regret it."

Hector did not answer. He sat and looked at her body and tried to get as much of what he saw into his mind before she became embarrassed and told him to leave. But why did they tell me I was to "do" something, he thought. This is fine for me: I could sit here and look at her for hours if she lets me. But Ida had no intention of letting him sit there for hours. She had been paid, and it was not her way to let a boy go and tell his friends that he had sat and looked at her but done nothing. She had a reputation for being fair and never taking advantage of an inexperienced boy. She stood and walked slowly, sultry as best she could, over to Hector and sat lightly on his knee.

"Don't be afraid," she said as her face got closer and Hector could smell the stink of stale rum on her breath, "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here to make you feel good." She slid his shirt over his head and led him to the couch. It was not long before he knew what to do and how to do it.

There were beads in her hair, Hector thought as he lay on the cot on the boat headed for Fort Lauderdale. There were beads, and they sway across my face. He stood and walked for the door to look out and see if he could see Noribel from their room. He could not, so he went back in the room and lay back on the cot and thought about Ida until he had remembered all that he could remember. That's okay, he thought, I did not do anything wrong. I won't have to tell her about it.

Chapter 9

The boat reached Fort Lauderdale at night. Hector and Noribel stood on the deck when they were told that they would be docking in less than an hour, and they stood, like many of the other people on board, watching as the lights of the city grew closer. Each of these people have their own place to go when they arrive, Noribel thought, and each have their own story to tell about where they have been. She watched the coast in the night and thought about what people might say about Puerto Rico and the things that they saw there. She wondered how many had taken trips to the country to see people like Hector working in the field with his pava tilted back, or resting under a tree to eat lunch. I hope they did not see him while he was resting, she thought. If that is the image they have to bring back, or if that and the image of the thugs in the city are their examples of our island, then we are never going to be respected here. But she did not want to think about how people in the states saw Puerto Ricans; no, she would rather her mother had lied to her and told her that Puerto Ricans are admired and trusted by the people in the states. Hector did not think about that as he watched the shore, though. He thought about how they were going to live together and how it might be in the city where his brother went to school. Noribel had told him the name of the city, but he could not remember it.

The boat reached the dock and they took their bags and went ashore. Hector saw tourists everywhere; he did not know much about the states, nor did he know that the people he saw drive by his farm were not tourists here as they were in Puerto Rico.

He looked around at the people who were getting off the boat. Noribel caught him by the arm and told him that he looked like he was from another planet the way he looked at the people with his mouth open and his eyes wide. She hoped that he was not going to have another episode like the one he had had when they were on the bus in San Juan. But she did not have to worry about that: Hector had come a long way, and he simply wanted to take in as much of this new place as he could. No longer did he see Puerto Ricans in the streets as he had in the cities back on the island. This was a new land for him, as it was for Noribel, and he had to gather as much of it in his mind as he could. They walked to where they saw other people catching cabs, and they stood by the curb as Noribel tried to call for one. A cab pulled up next to them and took them to the bus station. It was the first time Hector had been in a car, and he found it more exciting than riding in a bus. He asked Noribel if they could have the car take them to the city where Jesus went to school, but she told him that distances here are not like they were at home. He did not understand how that could make a difference, but he decided not to argue with her. I'll let her lead the way, he thought. She has done well so far.

They could not get a bus to Hartford until morning. Noribel did not know how to find a good hotel, so they decided to sleep in the bus station as they saw that there were other people sleeping on the benches. Hector, because he could sleep anywhere, did not see this as a discomfort. But Noribel had always slept on a bed, and she regretted that neither she nor her mother had thought to pack a pillow in her bag in case she found herself in such a position. She had read the board on the wall by the ticket counter and noticed that there was only one bus the next day bound for Hartford. It must not be that big of a city, she thought. She began to wonder if it was such a good idea to look for work and a place to live in a smaller city, and she wondered if there were other Puerto Ricans there who they could look to for help getting settled. If not, she thought, then we will go to either New York or Boston. Buses leave for those cities all the time. She leaned back against Hector and tried to get comfortable. He was already asleep, so she leaned lightly.

They slept until one of the attendants of the station woke them and told them that it was against the law to sleep in the station. Noribel asked him where they could sleep, but he shrugged his shoulders and said, "not here." So now they had to stay awake until they could get on the bus. It was only three in the morning when they had been wakened, and the thought of staying awake until eight did not sound like a good idea to either of them. But Noribel knew that it was useless to argue or plead with people who enforce such rules, so she decided to make the best of the situation and simply sit on the bench or walk around the station until it was time to leave. She told Hector what the man had said. He did not understand how there could be a rule against sleeping anywhere, and he thought about the problem for a long time before giving up. He could not think of what harm could be done by a sleeping person, but he did not want to ask Noribel the answer. It is probably the simplest thing, he thought, and I am too tired to think about it. So they sat and walked around and talked about trivial things until the sun came up. It was the first time either of them had stayed awake through a night without having been ill, and the sensation of having had no sleep after a long boat ride made Noribel feel like she had drank too much wine too early in the day.

By eight they were on the bus headed north. They had eaten what amounted to a big breakfast from the vending machines in the station, and they felt full and very tired as they settled into their seats for the long journey. Neither of them knew what Hartford was going to look like; they had thought about where they were going to end their journey, and they each had a different idea of what the end of the road would look like. It did not matter to them though. Hector had a feeling that the places he would see and live in in his future would be much different than he could imagine. These places would be pleasant, but they would not be like Tablones. Noribel thought too of what she was going to see on their journey, but her vision was more informed, more detailed, and she did not bother to think that her mother's memory of the states could be limited or over simplified. Either way, they had given themselves over to chance when they had decided to leave the comfort of their homes, and now, on the bus headed North, they could not afford to think that where they were going may be far from where they thought they were going.

The bus moaned down the highway like a great bull. Hector saw the signs along the road that made no sense to him, and would not have made more sense had they been written in his native tongue. He had never learned to read a single word. Jose had told the local authority on education that his boy would be taught at home where he should be taught. Jose knew the man he told this to, and the man knew that Jose could not, and would not if he could, teach anything other than how to grow and harvest crops and how to raise and foster a meager amount of livestock. Seeing the look on Jose's face when he talked about Jesus, and knowing that a good, hardworking son could mean the difference between hunger and plenty for the people in the country, the man had to, as he had done so many times, look the other way and write in his report that the son of Jose Perez was to be taught at home by two able and qualified parents. Hector knew no better than this: he knew how to work the farm, he knew how to listen to his parents, and he knew that as long as he stayed in his parents' home he would have food and shelter by the solemn and unspoken devotion of his father. This was the education Jose would give to his son. He would learn the link between blood and life, and he would learn that not all things had to be written, let alone read, and that these things, the devotion of father to son, of sun to crops, of God to sun, were more than he would need to live a long, honest and healthy life. What Jose had forgot to tell his son was that he could one day see a light shining brighter than the sun, a bounty offered for an appetite more powerful than food, a breeze more delicate and cooling than one from the mountains. He forgot to tell him that there might be a Noribel somewhere in this world. And she might rise from the dew like a slow forming, yet secret-thin tempest. And she might have eyes that shine green in the slanted sun. And she might have a form that holds the eye in splendor—for a moment, for a moment, then a shadow in the mind's eye, held what little light there is; seen, then gone. No, Jose had not thought to tell his second son what he had not remembered to tell the first son. He had not taught Hector to read, and that was not a sufficient precaution. Hector left, was on a bus now going through strange states, and there was no getting him back. He looked out the window of the bus and watched the cars pass.

They passed through Georgia before either of them felt like sleeping. As it had been through most of the trip, Hector fell asleep easily and unannounced, and Noribel watched. She could not imagine what it must be like for him to see the many places he had already seen after not having been outside his village for his whole life. She wondered about the change that had taken him from a scared farm boy to a man scared of nothing and more than willing to assert his ideas when the situation called for it. He changed, she thought, right after he had put on new clothes for the first time in his life. Maybe it happened because his mind could not take the stress of being scared all the time, and so, in order to save itself from insanity, gave over to that which frightened him, accepted it, and then embraced it. All in a matter of minutes. Incredible. She stared at him as he slept and thought about his change and where he had to come from and how far in order to be the person that now sat in the seat of a bus in a foreign country more comfortable than one who has been drilled on the ways and language of these people, and one who has been taught in formal schools that there is a logical order to all things, and, barring the unexpected catastrophe, that this logic predicts that all usually follows a form and plan so long as that form or that plan is logical. The entire line of thought became more and more complicated the more she thought about how he might fit into the largest scheme of things imaginable. But she too was tired, so she let her mind wander and stop, wander and fade, until she only had to blink and blink again to be fast asleep, her head leaning against the shoulder of her man.

When she woke, it was dark. Signs passed on the highway in the night; places like Dunn, Smithfield, and Selma were just names on those signs, they were not where she wanted to go. Places passed: Raleigh to the West lie out of sight and out of mind. Up, up to the North they went. Passing signs and places as if they were not there, as if the people there were not the people they wanted to see or meet. Kenly passed, as did the exit that would take them to the small town of Lucama, or the backroads to Patetown, Snow Hill, Hookerton, Falkland, Crisp, or Old Sparta. All these places had people. In every home where there was a light on there might have been two or a few people talking and living the way they did every night before and every night after. Time passed on the bus as these signs passed out the window and out of memory for Noribel. She would never see Hobgood or its fine people, Speed and the racetrack some boys had made there in one of the fields, Palmyra's small package store, or Connarista's oldest citizen. She had no need for these places. She did not have to think about them, as she did not have to think about the thousands of other places she would never go. And some of them were so far from the highway; she would not even see a sign that marked the way. But she may have thought about them; just a little, she might have given the signs a little acknowledgement as she read the names. Just a thought would have done it, just a nod of hello to the forgotten places off the road, would have placed them more securely in her mind. She read the names.

On North the bus travelled with a hum and the wind pushed and surged and fought but lost as the vehicle made shorter the time and the distance. All was time and distance on the highway, and all was a matter of a little less or a little more speed. The driver too thought not of the land travelled through, or the people passed along the way. But Noribel was new to the roads here, new to the ways of these highways, and she might have thought to wonder what went on a mile off the road. The people there, in that mile or so and beyond, could hear the busses and the cars passing with a hum. They thought about Noribel and Hector, maybe. And they knew without thinking about it that there was no sense in standing on the side of the highway and waving to everything that went by and wondering who was inside and what they were talking about if they were talking and where they were going if they were going or where they came from if they were coming from somewhere. No sense in that at all. They heard the hum of the road, that was enough. We hear you pass, they might have said collectively. We heard you hum until you were gone. Three seats behind, a man cleared his throat and that was that. Hector looked out the window now too.

He wondered how long it was going to take to get to Hartford, and he worried that they might have missed the sign by being unaware, predisposed to a degree, too busy to pull the cord that makes a buzz that tells the driver it is time to stop. The man behind them cleared his throat and Noribel stopped; so, Hector thought, maybe that is a sign that we have passed our stop. He asked Noribel if she was sure they had not gone too far and she said that they had a long way to go.

The lights in the night passed, as did the towns where the people tried to sleep, and Hector and Noribel sat back too and closed their eyes. They did not have to talk; not here, not until they were in Hartford. They slept until the sun came up again and they were outside New York.

Hector watched as New York City presented itself in the gleam of the sun. This was not a place they were going to see pass without a thought; no, they would have to think about this town as they passed through. The traffic was already choking the road, and Hector thought about how this city makes all the others he has seen look like Tablones in comparison. Building after building, street after street, he thought that it would be impossible for him to learn his way around in something so enormous. Noribel too was struck by the size of the city. She had been told by her mother that they would probably have to go through this city, but she had not stressed enough what it would look like or how small it would make her feel. Never, she thought, could I have imagined that mankind could make a city this big. It must have taken forever to lay these stones one on top of the other. Millions upon millions must live here. She, like Hector, sat forward in her seat and gathered as much of the city in her mind as she could. No, she thought, if Hartford does not work out for us, then I will not try to live here. They watched the city pass. Hartford grew closer and closer, but all they could think about was that they hoped it was not like this. Now they were both scared.

Chapter 10

Hector and Noribel got off the bus at the station in Hartford. It was late afternoon, and people were starting to fill the streets on foot and in cars. It is not like the other cities, Noribel thought. She carried her bag to a phone while Hector sat on a bench and watched the people pass. She found the slip of paper she had written Jesus' number on, and called him as she had written she would as soon as they got to Hartford. But there was no answer, so she decided to ask Hector if he would like to walk around for a while before she tried again.

They walked among the citizens as if they were tourists in town for a short time, and they did not intend to stay. They looked at everything and every person they could. Hector carried all the bags, and it was not long before his feet began to hurt from the shoes. He had not walked in them for any distance yet, and he could feel his heel becoming raw. He stopped and sat on a bench to take them off.

"What are you doing?" Noribel asked. She had not expected him to begin acting like he were back on the island. "You can't walk around here without your shoes on...it's not done."

"Then I will be the first to do it," he said.

Noribel decided it would be easier to let him have a few of his old ways, so she said nothing more and they continued to walk.

Noribel had bought a map of the city at the bus station. She stopped and sat down on a low wall of an office building to see if she could find Jesus' college. She did find it, and although she did not know how to relate the distances on the map to the real distances of the city, she figured that they would get as close as they could before she called the number again. So they walked some more: Hector with his bare feet, two big bags and water jug, and Noribel with her plaid sun dress holding a map before her and looking for street names. Both looked as though they were trying to regain a lost tour group, and both looked and felt like they had just spent nearly thirty hours on a bus.

All the while they walked, neither of them talked. They did not discuss whether or not they were going in the right direction, or how this or that their new home was; they were too tired for talk, and all they wanted now was a place to find a good meal and a comfortable bed. Jesus will help us, Noribel thought. He must know where we can find a place to live cheaply that is near a farm where Hector can work until I can find a good job before looking to get into a school. She expected that Jesus would help them, would be their host and their mentor, and she had no reason to think otherwise. Hector did not expect as much from his brother, and as they walked closer to him, he began to feel more and more that the Jesus they expected to see would not be the Jesus that was or was not waiting for them. For Hector Jesus had always been an apparition, a mystery, and he did not have much faith in him as a reliable person. They turned the final corner and found themselves on the campus of Trinity College. Noribel looked at her map and smiled. She walked to a phone booth across the street from the entrance to the college and dialed the number again. This time, there was an answer.

Jesus told them to stay where they are and that he would be right over. Hector had not seen his brother for some time, and now Jesus would not have to worry about sneaking around to tell him about all the great things found in the states and in college. Hector was nervous waiting by the phone; he looked at his feet on the broken cement sidewalk, and he held his bags close to his side. He also did not want Noribel to drift too far from him. He had already caught some of the native boys looking at her as they walked by. They were Puerto Ricans too, but they did not look to him to be the type of people he would want to talk to Noribel. No, there is something about this place that makes me feel uneasy, he thought. And although most of the people he saw walk by or drive by in cars looked to be Puerto Ricans, he did not feel as though he was among his own.

Jesus walked toward them with another man. His friend looked like Jesus to some degree, but he did not look like a Puerto Rican, and he smiled, it seemed to Hector, like a girl.

"Ola!" Jesus said as he walked to Hector and shook his hand. "I didn't think you two would actually have the nerve to come up here to see me. But, I am glad you finally did. Tell me, did you fly in?"

Hector stood and stared at his brother but he could not make out what it was that was different about him. His hair is a little different, he thought. And he talks a little differently, too.

"No," Noribel said in English, "we took a boat to Fort Lauderdale and then a bus to Hartford."

"Fantastic!" Jesus said. He lifted his hands in the air and clapped three times. His friend laughed. "Oh, how stupid of me...I forgot to introduce my friend. Hector meet my best friend in the world, Steve; Steve this is my brother Hector and his lover, Noribel."

"I gathered," Steve said. He shook both their hands and stared into Hector's eyes. "You don't look like Jesus," he said with a smile, "are you sure you're brothers?"

Jesus watched as his friend looked at his brother, and he pulled him by the shoulder.

"Yes, we're sure we're brothers," Jesus said. "C'mon now, let's go get something to eat."

Hector and Noribel were in favor of this idea, but Steve said that he would meet them back at the room. Jesus had offered for them to stay a week or so, and the offer made Noribel more optimistic than she had been since she had seen New York. Hector agreed, if only to eat and rest, but he did not like the way his brother was behaving, and he was not sure that he wanted to stay with him when their father was not there. He said nothing about his reservations, and walked behind as Jesus walked ahead with Noribel. We will see, he thought. We will see what this great life is really like after all.

Jesus had ordered pizza, and now the three of them sat on the two beds of the dorm room and talked. Hector could not help looking for what it was that was different about his brother; he watched the way he talked, the way he acted, but it was not one thing alone that had changed. Jesus was different as a whole, and Hector did not yet know how or why.

Jesus was talking about his classes to Noribel, when Steve walked in. Hector was startled by the way he simply walked in the door unannounced, and there was something about his brother's best friend that made him feel uncomfortable. I do not like the way he looks at me, he thought. There is something in his eyes that I do not trust. Steve sat next to Jesus on the bed and he leaned back against the wall and lit a cigarette. Hector watched him, but he did not want to stare. He did not do a good job at hiding his suspicion though, and the two best friends looked at each other and then at Hector and laughed.

"What is wrong with you?" Jesus asked. He was leaning against the wall too, and he sat very close to Steve. "Haven't you ever seen two good friends before? You look at us as though we're strange or something."

Noribel looked at Hector and tried to tell him something without speaking. She knew what was different about Jesus, and she had known since she had first met him. She also knew that neither Hector nor his father knew, and she had hoped, for their own sake, they never would know. She tried to change the subject before it got started, but it was too late.

"Jesus," she said, "is there anywhere around here where we can get an apartment for cheap? We have to find one as soon as we can, and if you know anyone who has one for rent, maybe we could go look at it tomorrow." She knew that Jesus had no intention of hiding the fact from Hector now that they were not under the rule of Jose, and she wanted to get him out of the situation before he saw something he would not understand. "Well," Jesus began, "I'm not sure you will want to live in this neighborhood. Here, at the school, there are few problems, but out there where you used the phone is not such a great place to live. Maybe we can find you something in a better neighborhood for cheap. We'll look in the paper tomorrow."

But Hector did not want to wait until morning to get out of his brother's room. He felt as though he was trapped in a strange place, and he felt that he was in danger. He thought about Paco the crazy man, but now he did not have his father to protect him. I wish they would stop smiling at me, he thought. He began to get angry at himself for not having seen this before. He began to feel sick, but in a different way than he felt in Pace's house, and he knew that he would have to come up with an excuse for them to leave before it was time to go to bed. Steve lived in the room with Jesus that was all Hector had to know. When they had first gone in the room, Jesus had walked in first and separated the two beds. Now, sitting across from the roommates, Hector knew why the beds were joined and why he felt as he did. He did not look at his brother while he spoke.

"I think we should find a place tonight," Hector said. "It would be better if we left these two alone, I think." He was visibly angry, and now no one in the room laughed at him or smiled. He said no more, and Noribel knew that he meant what he said and that they would sleep in the street before he would agree to stay there overnight. She felt bad about the way it had turned out. They gathered their bags, and stood by the door.

"I think you're being foolish," Jesus said. "You should not feel the way you do about something you do not understand."

"I understand," Hector said, "I know that you are a pato and your friend here is a pato too. What else is there to understand?"

Jesus did not say anything. He watched as his brother walked away, and he did not stand to say goodbye to them when Noribel followed and closed the door.

Noribel caught up to Hector as he pushed the door open and left the dormitory. She did not want to argue about something that was between the two brothers. Hector sat on a low wall by the street and looked down.

"Now what are we going to do?" he asked. He did not expect there to be an answer, and he began to feel as though they would never find a place to live if they did not have help from someone who knew the area. Noribel sat next to him and put her arm over his shoulder.

"Don't worry, Hector. We'll be all right. I still have enough money for us to stay in a hotel for a few days. We should be able to find a place."

But Hector was not worried about finding a place—all he could think about was that they almost had to sleep in the same room with two patos. I could kill him for betraying his father, he thought. If Papa found out about this, it would tear him apart. He thought about the goose, and it all started to make sense to him.

It was late by the time they were able to call a cab and ask to be taken to the nearest cheap hotel. They got to their room just before midnight, and they were finally able to bathe and sleep after a long journey by bus, and a longer, harder journey away from Jesus. The episode had taken its toll on Hector, and Noribel knew that he would not have anything more to do with his brother. She thought that Hector would probably begin to question the whole idea of coming to the states, and in particular, Hartford, and she decided not to talk to him about the trip or their plans or how they would find a place to live. She sat on the bed while he was in the shower, and a flock of geese flew over their room honking. Noribel listened to them until she could not hear them, and she smiled as she wondered where they were going. Probably to the field in Tablones, she thought. Those are probably the geese Hector told me he used to watch when he was younger. She lay down on the bed and thought about how beautiful it must be to be able to fly wherever you want to go. She heard the water stop and she smiled again.

Hector came out of the shower and lay on the bed next to Noribel. He was still thinking about his brother, and he wondered how he had failed to see it before. There is nothing I can do about it now, he thought, so he turned on his side and looked into Noribel's eyes. They looked like jewels to him, like the pictures of jewels he had seen in the books his brother brought back from school when he was going to school on the island. That was years ago: back before there was a thought about girls, or green eyes in a perfect face, or the way the heart feels when you see your love run naked into the sea by the light of the moon.

Noribel was thinking too—her thoughts were on them now, and she wondered if they would be like the geese that mate for life. She wondered if they would fly together, if they would land in meadows by shade trees where young farm boys watched and an old farm man tilted back his old brown pava to take a long drink from the water jug. She looked at Hector.

"Do you think we will be like geese?" she asked.

"I don't think so," he said. He immediately thought about the time he had spent in a remote house with the girl they called the goose. He became furious at his brother, for he was certain he had told her what had happened. "Why, did Jesus tell you what happened? He must have that rotten pato. Tell me what he told you."

"No, he didn't tell me anything...what did I say? I didn't say anything about your brother."

Hector could say nothing. I almost told her myself, he thought. That fool. He did this. He put a spell on us or something. He tried to calm down so that he could change the subject. I'll tell her that I thought she had asked me if I thought we would wind up like Jesus, that's all.

"Why do you think we will be like ducks?' he asked.

"No," she said, "geese; I asked you if you thought we would be like geese and mate for life. That's all. I didn't mean to make you think about your brother, I just wanted to know if you thought we would stay together for the rest of our lives and never stray from each other and never fly away from each other. That's all I meant." She felt bad about reminding him of his brother, and now she thought it may have been a bad idea to try >*~n and compare their love with the ways of geese. He is not used to such comparisons, she thought. I do not think he compares anything to anything else. At least he has never done so in front of me.

Hector sat up in bed and looked toward the window.

"Then .yes," he said, "I think we will be like the geese. I did not know that they mated for life. I know that they stick together no matter what. I hope you will be the same and stay with me even though I will not go to my brother for help. I can't, not now. I did not want to rely on him before, but now...now I do not even want to see his face ever again. I know that is wrong, he is my brother, but I cannot be like a goose with him. Not him, not anymore. He has Steve for that now. S~^ Let Steve be his goose and his pato." Hector felt his voice catch in his throat and he had to stop talking about Jesus.

Hector heard a voice as he slept, and he was startled when he woke to find Noribel on the phone. He hoped it was not Jesus on the other end; she spoke English, and he could not understand what she was saying. She looked at him and smiled, and he knew that it was not his brother.

Noribel had called the Hartford Housing Department to see if they could help in finding a place to live. As it turned out, they did have a place for her to stay, but she would not be able to include Hector as a dependant because they were not married or related. The representative from the department said she would come over to give Noribel a ride to the apartment. She would have all the forms with her, she said, and Hector could come too so that he could register as a citizen of the state. Noribel told him this very quickly, and he did not understand everything that she said. But that did not matter to Noribel: finally she had a reason to like Hartford, and she could explain the process to Hector later as it was explained to her.

They rode to the apartment with the woman who represented the Housing Department. She and Noribel spoke English the entire time, and Hector felt proud that his woman knew how to speak another language easily and naturally. As they drove, he recognized some of the buildings from the previous day; he knew that the apartment was near Jesus' college, but he decided that he would not make a big deal about living in the same neighborhood. Well, he thought, I do not have to talk to him if I see him. I can mind my business, and he can mind his. The car stopped in front of a four story building with a large staircase and a broken window in the front door. There were people in front of the building, and Hector thought that they were probably too late and that these people had already made a claim to the apartment. Noribel and the woman from the city got out of the car. Hector followed carrying the bags and his water jug. He still did not wear his shoes.

The apartment was big enough for a family, and Noribel liked the way she was able to see a park from one of the front windows. Hector too walked around with a smile: he liked that it was a big place, and he thought that it must cost a fortune in rent. Noribel asked the woman how much the rent is in English. Hector could not understand what she had said, so he waited until they had filled out all the paperwork before he asked.

"Well," the woman from the city said, "as I told Noribel, this apartment was being held specifically for Puerto Ricans who wish to come to Hartford but who do not have any means of paying for a place to live. As you can see, the place is neatly furnished and secure. All you, I mean, technically, she will have to do is fill out a progress report each month until she is able to find a suitable job that pays her enough to live on. At that point, she will have her food allowance reduced, and one fifth of her pay will be garnished as her contribution to the program. It's very simple, actually."

The woman spoke Spanish, and Hector could not understand why she did not speak Spanish the entire time. But that did not matter now. All that mattered to him was that they had a place to live, they had furniture and a big bed, and he had Noribel safe and sound in their new home. This is it, he thought. But he was not yet ready to trust what he saw; no, he would have to live there for some time before he could feel that it was safe and a good place to live with the woman he loved. He watched Noribel as she walked from room to room smiling and singing a song in English. It was a happy song.

Noribel had time to tell Hector how they were able to get an apartment for free. She also told him that, because they had no jobs, and because they had no family in the area to help them, they were eligible for enough food stamps to buy food for a family of four. Hector did not understand though; to him, there had always been one way to get a house and one way to get food, and that way had nothing to do with being from Puerto Rico, and nothing to do with the signing of paper. One had to work in Tablones, or one had to be like Paco. He did not want to consider himself to be like either Paco, so he made sure that they were not given what they did not deserve simply because they were not natives. He made this clear to Noribel. She did not argue with him; but even though she admired his honesty, she did not intend to give back what others had decided she had a right to. She had the apartment for free as long as she wanted it, and she would do whatever she had to do to convince him that they should live there until they were both making enough money to comfortably afford an apartment paid for by their own work. Hector finally did not argue this, and it was mutually decided that they should not forfeit what they had acquired by fortune or by God.

Noribel still had over two thousand dollars in cash, and it was time to get more clothes. All that they had brought with them had been the clothes that they had worn on the island; now, as the wind seemed to grow stronger with each hour, and as the chill seemed to come swiftly like a bird at night, there would be a need to dress like the natives. Hector would have to wear his shoes.

Since they had moved into the apartment as smoothly and as quickly as they had gotten on a bus in San Juan, they had the rest of the day to find clothes and locate the nearest market. Neither seemed to be a problem, and they soon had a modest amount of warm weather clothing and a refrigerator and shelves full of food. Their change from a desperate couple in a strange land to a happy couple at home in their new surroundings had happened as fast as Hector's change from a farm boy into an independent man. Noribel felt as if she had been blessed by God as she carried her groceries up the four flights of stairs and into the apartment that was hers only because she needed one. How else could this be, she thought. She stood and watched as Hector tried to find a place to put an enormous box of cereal, and she crossed herself. She decided then, right there as she watched her man, that she would thank God for the first time in her life for all the beautiful things he has given her. She sat in one of the chairs and leaned her head over to the window to look down on the street. We live like a king and queen, she thought. I hope the others that live here don't hate us for all the great things we have been given. Hector turned toward her and smiled. He could not find a place to put the box, so he brought it into the living room and put it on the couch and shrugged.

And the days of their splendor passed on like rose petals blown in the wind. Hector and Noribel did not fight, they did not wish, and they did not want. Hector had resigned himself to the idea that he should wait until they were completely settled before finding a job. They spent each hour of each day together, and Noribel did not yet want to be left alone in their big apartment while her star, her pure and simple hero, went off to work. Besides, it was decided that he should probably try to learn some English and perhaps some skills other than farming before going out to present himself to a potential employer. Hector was most stubborn about learning a skill other than farming though; he had always thought of himself as a farmer, and he was not going to let his idea of himself change easily. But he did not tell Noribel about his stubbornness for fear of upsetting their tranquility. Instead, when the subject was brought up, he would simply shrug, as he often did, and say, "we will see."

One day, as they were preparing to decide what to eat for lunch, Noribel decided that it was time that they thanked God for all the things He had given them. About a month had passed since they had first driven up to the apartment, and Noribel had taken that time to slowly, maybe unintentionally, consider what force or forces had seen fit to provide them with the answer to her version of their dream. She had finally decided that it was God, and knowing the little she knew of Him, she thought it was His will that He be thanked for each and every wonderful thing that He does for those He chooses to do wonderful things for. Hector sat watching television and trying to figure out what the people on the screen were saying.

"Hector," she began, "I think it is time we pray to God and thank Him for what He has done for us."

Hector looked at her for a time. He had never heard her say anything about God, and the sudden outburst caught him off guard. "What?" he said.

"Well, I was just thinking; since we have been given this place to live, and since we have each other and food and clothes and everything, I thought that we should thank God for all that He has given us. I mean, we could still be looking for a place to live, or sleeping in the streets like some of the people here do. "

"That is true," Hector said, "but why didn't you think of that when we were back in Puerto Rico? We had each other there too. We also had food and clothes and a place to live. I think if you are going to thank God for what He has given you, then you had better start when you are first born."

"You're right," she said. "But now we have a chance to thank Him for what He has given us so far. We can make up for the time we lost."

Hector turned in his chair to look at her. He did not understand how she had thought of God, but he knew by the tone of her voice that she was not going to be happy until he agreed that they should thank Him.

"Okay," he said, "let's thank God so that He will not be mad at us for not thanking Him before."

Noribel motioned for Hector to join her on the floor in a kneeling position by the front window. She prayed aloud, but she had to make up the prayer because she had never heard a person pray aloud before. Hector had, but he did not remember what was said, or how to frame his thoughts to make them presentable to God, so he repeated what she said as best he could. He did not feel comfortable kneeling, and he could not understand what difference it made. He figured that God would listen no matter how a person was situated in a room. That is, he thought, if He really cares to listen at all. He stayed on the floor next to her though, and he waited until she stood before he sat back in front of the television and resumed watching the pictures and the people. Noribel had taught him some English already, but the few words he understood were not enough to make what he watched sensible.

Many more days passed while the couple attempted to adjust to their new surroundings. They had what they needed; now all they wanted was something to do. Noribel thought about calling her mother, but she had been instructed to throw away everything that she had brought from Puerto Rico as soon as she had a place to stay. It was part of the plan, and Noribel did not question her mother's wishes. She threw away everything that she had that concerned her previous life. And Hector, since he did not have any formal identification, thought nothing of her actions. He did, however, stop her from throwing away his pava. He would keep that, he had said, as long as he was alive. He kept that and everything else he had brought with him in his bag safely tucked away in one of the closets they did not use. They were, by the fifth week in the apartment, completely and totally a part of the U.S.. They could not foresee, especially since they had thanked God for all that they had, anything going wrong with their world. And they made love in their own bed, by the light of their own moon, each night they were able, and each day they chose.

To them, theirs was a marriage already sanctified by God—He had given them the time and the place, and by doing so, His blessing. They did not count hours or days, nor did they look to the uncertain future for their golden fortunes. They were content.

Chapter 11

Sun and the cold bite of the wind made Hector squint as he walked home from the market. It was late November, and he began to feel a longing for his native island. The days had grown shorter as the weeks passed; the rain had come, and the smell of decaying leaves mixed well with the cold, ghostly air. Hartford was preparing for a long winter now, and Hector felt sick from the cold. He walked quickly up the streets now void of the music and absent the mix of young and old—these streets where there was life were growing more and more empty. A death was coming; he could feel it whistle its warning through the front of his coat.

He walked in thoughts he recognized from his dreamy visions between sleep and awake; onward, onward he paced the beaches in his mind. He was warmer when he arrived. His feet were bare and his arms and chest wore the sweat of a long journey, defined by conquest and molded, shaped, by an urge to destroy. As he walked down streets of Hartford, his dream double walked on empty beaches—beaches peopled only with the dead. Bodies naked and dismembered, bleeding corpses crusted with dried blood from wounds now old to the killer, now forgotten, were walked past as if they were wild flowers too far from the path. Onward, the warrior paced, for he had crossed this ground before, and he had made those flowers, now forgotten, grow. Facing the sea, Hector watched for a boat, a sign of any kind, that someone was going to come and see what he had done and place the sacred laurels on his knotted neck. On he walked, slowly, slowly, watching for movement, waiting for an answer, or hoping the question would dry up and float away. But the questions were too many.

Hector walked on through the streets, and on the beach. He could not ask what was the dream; he had no answer, he knew this, so he walked with it. He saw the sky blowing late sun through the late clouds. He saw the sky darken with the shapes of birds; black and white, that turned the day sky night. He stopped his walk to watch. They floated and turned, dove and climbed. They cried and answered, and they peered through darkened eyes at the man on the beach looking up with his mouth open as if to say, "Land here, and I will eat you." But the birds were not scared of the victor. They howled and chanted as they flew; floating low, just out of reach, they formed a chorus that sang his name in a hideous dirge:

Hector, Hector,

Lie, lay-lee die;

Put on beach to wonder why.

Hector, Specter,

Fortune's spy;

Ancient soldier, dreamer, fly.

He heard the words sung in low voices and awful notes. He saw the birds now visible by the gaps of sun some let through their flying knit—they were geese. And he knew without asking that they were the geese from a field on an island somewhere in his future. He cried out in fear:

"Generals, men of Troy...women who sang at my feet now wait for me to be hung. Help me, save me from these of the armies of nature. What I have lost has cost me my soul. Now, do not let this scattered beast take what I have left." There was no answer. There were no generals to save him. Hector must be as Hector is, he thought as he walked in his dual roles. He crossed the street and opened his eyes to the life, or rather, to the fact that the life was absent on the street in front of his apartment.

Mrs. Lopez, his neighbor, called his name as he walked up the stairs. Yes, he thought, I almost forgot. I have her eggs.

He stopped at her door which she had left open hearing him coming her way and he walked in and handed her the eggs.

"How was your day?" she asked, as she always did, with a big smile and her hands pushed tight in her apron.

"Fine," Hector said.

"And your cold?"

"Better, thanks," he said.

"Good. Will you be coming for dinner tonight? We're having chicken."

Hector did not answer. He was staring out the window watching the branches of the trees sway in the cold wind.

"Well," she said, "I can bring some up to you later. You don't have to come, I understand. You go get some rest now; you've had enough to think about lately." She took the eggs, and Hector walked out without closing the door behind him.

He went up to the apartment and put the groceries in the cabinets. He sat on the couch looking out over the empty streets and the low, bare trees. There was only the noise of Noribel's tight, almost choked breathing. Hector took off his shoes and began to think about what had passed in the last few weeks.

The rain on that day was cold, he thought. I had gone to the market to get a few cans of tomatoes, and it was the first time I had left Noribel alone. She had told me that she was going to stay in, that she did not like the cold rain, and that she would probably sleep on the couch until I got back. I told her I would be back very soon, and, if she wanted, we could take the bus somewhere, or she could teach me more English. But I too was tired, so I thought that it might be a good idea to sleep myself when I got back. I looked at her lying on the couch before I left, and I thought then that she was the most beautiful of God's creations. And she was. She had her eyes closed when I looked at her, but when I told her I would be right back, she opened them and I saw that her eyes were looking at me. At me, and only at me for the rest of our lives. I knew that she would never leave me, and I felt good and confident about leaving her alone. Now I do it all the time.

Hector looked over at Noribel as she slept, and he thought about her the first time he had seen her on the beach. She looked back at me, he thought, and I fell in love with her on the spot. Jesus knew it too. He knew there was something between us, some magic maybe, but he only saw it and told me that there are even more beautiful women in the states. He was wrong. There are none better than my Noribel—none. But you could not expect him to see that. And you could not expect Papa to see it either. He never saw her. It would not have made a difference. He would not have liked her. I do not think he would have liked anything that he thought would take me from the fields. That is all that he wanted. He just wanted me for the fields like a burro, or like a hoe. But he found out. He saw me leave. I know he got up after I had walked away and he had looked out the window and watched me walk down the road for the last time. I wonder what that did to him. I wonder if he is thinking about me now, or if he went outside that night and lay in the tall grass and would not come back in the house like the time his brother had died. Hector stood and walked to the sink for a glass of water.

He looked out the window and saw that the sun was streaming through the clouds as the day grew old. He thought about the geese he would see in the fields when he worked with his father, and he thought about how they came late in the day, stopping there to visit the pond behind the trees. He would watch them as he sat in the shade, and the geese were not scared of him or his father. They floated down, some circling first, others coming in straight, and he could see them coming from a long way off. They flew in a triangle, but they broke apart before they landed. And there was never a dead one left behind. Hector remembered thinking that they must never die, or there would be a dead one found every once in a while like people are sometimes found dead in their house, or curled up dead in a ball out in a field. There were many ways that people died, but there were few, if any, ways that geese died. This is the time of year they come, he thought. Papa is probably with them now in the field. He took his glass of water back to the couch and sat down looking out at the sky and wondering why geese were not found dead.

Hector had fallen asleep on the couch in the light of the dying day, and when he awoke, he saw that Noribel had her eyes open. She was looking at him, but he could not tell if she was awake or not. She did not make a noise. He could smell that something had happened. Sure enough, she had made a mess.

Hector went into the kitchen and cursed himself for not having put the towels down on the bed before he had left for the market. He had remembered to check before he left for the market, but his mind was busy trying to think about what they needed, and he had forgotten at the last minute that she had not gone in some time, and there was a good chance that Mrs. Lopez would, as she often did, also forget to check. He took a towel and held it under the faucet until it was soaked with warm water. He then took another dry towel from underneath the sink and brought it with him to the bed. She looked at him again. She did not move her head, only her eyes followed his movements.

What had happened on the day when Hector first left Noribel's side to go to the market in the rain was something that he did not like to think about. He had come home from the market, and when he saw that she was not there, he did not worry, and he did not wonder why she had left. He assumed that she had gone down to Mrs. Lopez1 apartment to get something, or to talk to her about something, and he smiled to think that they had made such a good friend. When she did not return for a long time though, he began to worry. He went down to Mrs. Lopez and asked her if she had seen Noribel or if she knew where she might be. She said no, and he did not have an idea of where else she could have gone. He went back up to the apartment and looked out the windows to see if he could spot her coming up one of the streets. When he looked out the window of the bedroom, he saw her.

He changed the towels underneath her and tried not to think about it. But he could not help it, and as she watched him, he remembered how he had seen her on the roof of the building next to theirs. She was face down, and the rain had made her clothes stick to her skin. She did not move, and he could not think of why she had gone onto the roof of that building, or why she was lying down. It made no sense to him. He watched her, but she did not move. Is she asleep on the roof in the rain, he asked himself. But he could not imagine why she would do such a thing. He heard Mrs. Lopez at the door, and he told her that he was in the bedroom and she should come in to see something. When she saw Noribel of the roof next door, she screamed and ran out of the room.

Later, when Noribel was back in the apartment with Hector, Mrs. Lopez told him what Noribel had said once about going on the roof. She had said that there were geese and other birds up there sometimes when it rained, and that she would like to go up there to see if she could feed one bread, or make one come to her and be her pet. She had gone on and on about how they were the best birds because they always stuck together, and because they mated for life. Mrs. Lopez told this to Hector, but she had not told it to the doctors or anyone else. What had happened once she got on the roof, she said she could not tell. Maybe she had chased one to the side and then slipped, or maybe she had walked to one and it had bit her and made her jump back and that is when she fell. It made no difference, she said, because now what was done was done, and there was no way to undo what had happened. She will be like this for the rest of her life, Mrs. Lopez said, and when she cried, Hector thought the world had dropped out from under him and he was going to fall and keep falling until he hit the same place where Noribel had landed and he was in the same place where she rested now. "That is all right," he said to her after he had cleaned the soiled towel and put it into the bucket he used to bleach it out, "I'll get someone to fix you. It can be done." But he did not know then how, or to whom he should look for help. He sat and looked at her eyes looking at him and wondered who to ask for help.

Mrs. Lopez told Hector that there were doctors who could restore Noribel to her former condition, but she did not know who they were, or where they could be found. There was also the problem of money: she told him that such doctors do not work for free, and that the operations would cost a great deal of money if they could be performed at all. Hector asked her how he could go about finding one of these doctors, and how he could get the money to pay them. "Well," she said, "if you had insurance, you would be able to have the operation done for free. They would pay. The problem now is, you have no way of getting insurance for her. She would have to have a physical, and she would not pass, as you can see."

"What do you mean by pass," Hector said.

"Well, they will not give you insurance unless you are in good shape."

"Then why would you need insurance if you were in good shape?"

"Hector, insurance is there in case something bad should happen to you."

"Something has happened."

"Yes, but you should have had insurance before anything happened. See? You pay them each month, and when something happens, they pay for it."

"What if I get insurance for her now, and I do not tell them that the accident has already happened?"

"You can try. I don't know. I don't know much about it."

Hector thought about what Mrs. Lopez had said, and he decided that he would have to find a way to get Noribel insurance so she could get the operation that would restore her to her former self.

When he walked out of the kitchen and saw Noribel on the bed in the middle of the living room, he thought his heart was going to fall out of his chest. Her mouth was open, and she was crying, though she did not make a sound. The doctors had told him that she was aware, that there was no damage to her mind or her hearing or her sight, but when she had hit the roof below, she had done so much damage to her spine, that she had lost her ability to move any of her limbs. She could do nothing. All she could do to make a noise to get Hector's attention was moan, or sigh loudly. Aside from that, the only other movement she controlled was her eyes. And now, as he walked in the room to tell her that he was going to get insurance so that they could get a doctor to operate on her, she lay with her mouth open and her eyes full of tears.

"I know, my flower," he said, "please do not cry. I'am going to get a doctor to fix you. Then, we can be like we used to be. We can do anything you want."

She looked at him through the glaze of the tears, and he wiped the water from her cheeks and her mouth. He heard the geese honk on the roof, and he knew why she was upset. He went into the closet where he kept the things he had brought with him from Puerto Rico and he put on his pava. He took off his shoes and put on a pair of his old shorts with the holes in the pockets. He straightened her head on the pillow so she could see him better, and he tried as hard as he could to smile.

"Remember how I was before?" he asked."I am still your little jibaro, Noribel. I am still him." He took off his hat and tipped it over his head as if it were full of water and he was cooling himself by a brook on the side of a hot road outside Fajardo. "See? I am still the same. And I will always be the same. I love you, my little flower. If it takes me the rest of my life, I will make you better. I promised you I would stay with you no matter what, and I will. I love you."

Hector kissed her and he could taste her tears. I will make you better, he thought, or I will die trying. He swept her long black hair away from her face and told her he would be back in a short while. He walked out of the building and began to look for a place where he could get insurance. It was snowing.

Chapter 12

I had been in Hector's apartment for over an hour before I got a chance to see Noribel's face. She was in the room, but her head was turned to the other side, and I did not get off the couch to walk around. Hector propped her head on the pillow when he saw that her eyes were open. He wanted her to see me; and I am certain now, though he gave no indication at the time, that he saved the time when I would see her face for a point in his tale that would accentuate such a sight. He made it appear as though he was merely allowing her to have a better view of the room, but I knew he wanted me to see her.

I cannot describe in mere words just how beautiful a woman Noribel was. It would be like describing a great painting, or a natural wonder to a person who has never seen anything like it, anything from which one could draw a comparison. She was unspeakably beautiful—the sort of beauty that catches one off guard, and makes one fear that the object gazed upon is more than real. All other senses drifted off, and I had just my eyes to see just her eyes, to touch her with what I had, and to be touched with all she had left. I stared, and I should say that I am not the type to stare at people, especially those who have been afflicted, until Hector resumed his tale.

He told me of what he had left behind to come to the U.S., and he told me some of the troubles they had along the way. The apartment, though it was certainly large enough for the two of them, and though there were signs of food in good supply, had been bought, he said, by what was thought to be good fortune, or, as he later put it, by God. Hector questioned this assumption using Noribel as his prime example. He asked me what I thought of good fortune that gives one a place to live for free, all the food one could ever want, but does not supply the security one instinctively begs for when one has all one's prayers answered. That, I told him, was something I could not answer. I told him that we all live with a certain amount of uncertainty, and that misfortune does not care whether it comes to those who have plenty, or those who have nothing. He considered what I had said, and I could see from his eyes, and also from the eyes of Noribel who he told me could hear perfectly, that what I had said was more clear to them than it could ever have been to me. I felt foolish and pompous explaining to them, for it was to both I spoke, that their life had turned barren and futile because of forces beyond their control. I vowed at that point in the conversation to answer more delicately, to listen closely, and to keep in mind that I was the first one from the 'outside' to be in their home—to see firsthand their terrible situation.

Hector went on with his story. He stood for some of the telling, and he sat across from me at other times, but he did not break to offer me a drink, and he did not show any indication that he was interested in my reason for being there. He took it for granted, I think, or he thought he knew. Perhaps he had rehearsed the story in his head a thousand times in the event that he would need to someday tell it to a person who would listen, feel the pain that they felt, look upon Noribel with pity or a sense of duty, and then see to it that she was brought back to her former self. I could see it in his eyes: he had put on his straw hat, and the brim sat low on his brow making a sharp shadow that only allowed the green of his eyes to be seen. When he looked at me, all I could see were the tense, wide open eyes of one who has endured an unending nightmare — a nightmare that started as a perfect dream but changed simply and quietly making the dream, the pleasantness of life before the accident, seem like the cruelest trick by the cruelest god. He did not blame God though; he told me, as he stood looking into the eyes of Noribel, that God had been thanked for what he had given them, and it could not have been Him that set the whole thing in motion. I agreed, but I said no more. I did not want to make the mistake of offering my views on God, or God's will; no, that would have been like telling Lazarus that God is able to manifest His will regardless of Earthly laws and beliefs.

When Hector had finished telling his tale, and after he had made an effort to see to the comfort of Noribel, he looked to me for my response. I had not prepared myself to answer questions regarding the availability of insurance policies to those who have already suffered, and I began to feel nervous — guilt began to creep up my spine as I thought that I may be the one to tell then once and for all that their situation was hopeless. And it was his look, and the way that Noribel's eyes concentrated on mine, that brought about this fear. Surely, I thought, the logical conclusion of such a tale being told to a person associated with the cure would lead to a last and final question. He would want to know how I could help. But he did not ask, and after a long time of sitting and looking at me, he stood and walked toward the door.

"Now you know," he said. "That is what happened to us when we came to the U.S. I have to attend to Noribel now, so, if you do not mind, we have to be alone."

I looked at Noribel for the last time. She did not return my gaze, and I could tell that her eyes, the only part of her body that moved, were looking out to some other place, some other time. I said goodbye to her in my mind, and I only nodded to Hector as I walked out the door. There was nothing I could say, and saying goodbye to him after he had told me what had happened seemed cruel and almost comically inconsiderate.

I walked back to the office, but I knew that it would be closed. I had taken my keys with me thinking that my meeting with Hector, if there was going to be a meeting, might possibly take longer than the four hours that were left of the workday. Passing the front of the office on my way to the garage, I tried to see the place as Hector might have when he first decided this would be his one and only insurance office—his first and last place of redemption for a sin he did not know he committed, knew not how to repent. But I could not get the feeling I was hoping for, and there was no way that I ever would. I had not come as far as they had, could never hope to have what they thought they had, and the feeling left me empty.

I did not expect to see Hector come to the office the next day, and I hoped that I would not be asked where I had disappeared to when I had left to follow him. I was not asked, as I could have predicted, but Hector did return to repeat his attempt. I could not believe it: he walked past me as if I was not there, as if we had never met, and proceeded to the same two desks he had gone to for the last three years. Surely, I thought, he allowed my visit as an attempt to acquire the policy for Noribel, and surely he would do all his dealings, if any, with me. He knew nothing of how the office was organized, so it made perfect sense that he would assume that I was sent to his apartment to investigate the situation, and that I was handling the case from now on. I could not think of why he had seen me but made no effort to walk the few steps away from the receptionist and sit across my desk with his hat in his hand. I did not want to take over his case, but I had resigned myself to it and told myself that that is the price I would have to pay for hearing their story and seeing the force that kept him coming back. I felt betrayed in a way, as if he had used me as a sounding board to hone his story and to gauge the effectiveness of allowing someone to see her, to see the person the policy was to be given to. I fully expected to see Julie, coat on and briefcase in hand, following him out the door. But even this conclusion was dashed: he simply walked past me alone on his way out as he had every other time he had come. The amount of time he had spent talking to Julie was neither increased nor decreased, and again he did not even look at me though I was within ten feet of him as he left.

I was due back at the office in Florida by the end of the following week. They needed someone who spoke Spanish in the Miami branch, and because I was usually the one who made little noise about being transferred, I was asked to go. I spent the remainder of my time in the Hartford office finishing what I could have finished in the first month there, but had chosen to linger on to get to know the area and to solve the mystery of Hector. I had not succeeded at either. Hartford would remain a city of little character, and Hector would remain a mystery.

Later in life, much later when I had settled in New Orleans and married, I called the Hartford office and found that Julie had retired, but Susan was still there. I asked her what had happened to Hector, and she said she did not know. "One day he stopped coming," she said. "It was as if the sun had never come up." I told her that I would not be getting back there any time soon, and to say hello for me to anyone who remembers me, and she said she would. I hung up the phone and had a feeling that there was more to the story of Hector and Noribel than he had told me or that I had invented in my own mind based on what I heard him say and what I saw of his life. Maybe they went back to Puerto Rico, I thought. Maybe the sun came up for them one day and they floated up its beams and soared through the heavens to land in a quiet spot by some trees where the air is warm and there is a pond and there are two country people enjoying the simplicity of their movements and the glory of their forms.

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