The Accidental Native (17 page)

“Behave,” she said in a drowsy voice mixed with a little laugh. I laughed into her hair and tossed back on the bed, my fingertips on my chest feeling my heart beating.

Through the night we turned, flipped and flopped, until on one cycle we faced each other. She caressed my cheek and bent in to
kiss me. A lingering, soft, wet kiss. From there, our bodies went on automatic, moving in third gear, coasting speed; our passion, fluid, prolonged, graceful.

Outside a young woman sang a muted, drunken bolero, and in the bathing moonlight, we fell into a sweaty, naked embrace.

No one knows for sure when the annual Thanksgiving Family Reunion started, although members from the older generations venture different years. Thanksgiving dinners, always an occasion for the Matos Canales clan—Julia's family—to gather kept growing in number, to the point that the holiday dinner soon evolved into an “event,” and before you knew it, flyer invitations were sent out, then emails, to every conceivable relative along the various branches of the family tree announcing the important details for the reunion. At times, family from the States, or South America and Spain, attended. The number of attendees grew, but one tradition remained constant, and that was to rotate the locale every year. This year Hacienda Colibrí, in Lares, was the site, and I headed out to this family property for the second time within a year.

I received a direct, verbal invitation from Julia's parents, my biological maternal grandparents, the first time I had met them. They had chided Julia for “hiding” me. Don Marco and Doña Cruz knew about me but kept silent as to the background of my birth, claiming, perhaps truthfully, that they themselves did not know the entire story. I had been on the island for months, and Julia finally got around to presenting me to them, and for this they were very upset. We drove up to their house in Guaynabo, and at the doorway Julia stood, head hung low, arms crossed, as they gawked at me for minutes and then hugged me. My grandmother held my face in her delicate hands and looked at me with her amber eyes full of tears.

“Dios mío,” she said, “he looks so much like your brother Miguel,” she said to my grandfather, who examined me with tilted head.

“I was thinking the same thing,” he responded. He came over and also embraced me, surprising me with the strength his slight body possessed.

Julia had inherited his eyes, my eyes, equally deep set and piercing.

“I'm not going to welcome you to the family,” he said. “Because you were always part of our family.”

I just nodded down toward the floor.

“Welcome, home,” he added.

When I informed Julia I was bringing Marisol along, this notice was met with some silence, then the question, “Why?”

I didn't want to get into mother-son type conversations with Julia. It bothered me, especially when it came to issues dealing with women I dated. I told her Marisol was my date and that was that. I don't think she was concerned about RSVPs and if there was going to be enough food. My grandparents had told me to bring anyone I liked.

“Don't worry,” said my new grandmother, “where two can eat, three can eat,” citing a popular refrán, or saying.

In a moment of weakness, I had let it slip that Marisol and I were getting a bit more serious. Julia had met Marisol only once and afterwards suggested she was “mature” for me. “The Cradle Robber,” she would joke when referring to her.

More seriously, she asked, “Are you sure she isn't desperate? You know, tick tock.”

Maybe there was a grain of truth to this, but those thoughts were dissipating, because I just liked being with her. And what difference did a few years make, anyway? And something I would never tell my biological mother: Marisol confirmed everything any young man had ever praised about a more experienced woman.

On turning to the inclining drive leading to Colibrí, we were met by parked cars lining the sides of the narrow road, a sure sign there would be no parking up hill. Marisol pointed to an empty available space, which I managed to squeeze into, and we walked
up to the hacienda. She twisted her arm around mine and held me tightly, at times playfully pulling me down or squeezing my butt.

We reached the house, walked up to the first floor, which had several huge, shutter-type wooden doors, most of them closed. On entering the only opened set, wider than the others, we walked into the salon, where a trio of rattan rocking chairs faced each other. Above, an eighteenth-century iron cast chandelier, electrical sconces now substituting burning candles, swung with the afternoon breeze settling into the high elevation. Inside, there were touches of the hacienda's past, photos of coffee harvesting, a large wooden pilón, a mahogany dining table for ten, an enormous, heavy dish display and other antique furniture. We peered through a locked glass door into a large refrigerated wine cellar, full of bottles stacked neatly on rows of wooden racks. The kitchen retained its original spaciousness, but it was obviously modernized and well-equipped to cook for many mouths.

Marisol went to the bathroom, and I roamed around the house, exploring in more detail sections I had scanned or missed entirely during my previous visit. In one of the parlors, I came across an entire wall of photos, dozens of them, some which had that unmistakable sepia color connoting history. On closer inspection, I realized they were family photos. My family. People I could not name or place if my life depended on it. I squinted and stared, looking for a sign of recognition, resemblance, anything bordering on a connection to these framed ghostly figures. A gallery of nondescript types in unflattering attire who did not appear willing or capable of smiling. Some, I finally noticed, had the striking Matos eyes, which even in a static picture, from decades ago could demand and hold your attention.

“That's the boring branch of your family, Rennie.”

I turned around and Doña Cruz was standing at the door, all five feet of her. She was wearing capri pants and neon green sneakers. Her hair set in a chignon. “Hola, abuela,” I said, and her amber eyes lit up. On my visit to their home, she was not pleased that I did not call Julia Mom. When Julia had left the room, she looked at me sternly and told me so in crisp but heavily accented English, and then she whispered, “What you call your mother is your business,
but if you know what's good for you, you better call me abuela.”

She had been an elementary school teacher, a very strict one who never resorted to any physical punishment to gain her students' respect. Julia tells of a time that her mother became incensed over a teacher's paddling a student. After lecturing the colleague and realizing that she could not convince him to change his ways, she simply walked away. But the male instructor made the mistake of mocking her as she headed for the door. Doña Cruz turned on her heels, walked to the man and slapped him hard with the back of her hand, making his lip bleed. Asked about the hypocrisy in this act, she defended herself by saying that he was a man, not a child, and then added, “I was not going to let him ridicule me in front of colleagues.” A few days later, his paddle went missing. He accused her, but nothing could be proved. Years later, she became the superintendent of schools in the district and forced the man into retirement. The paddle came in the mail, with his first pension check.

“These are mainly Marco's family. Sad group, don't you agree?” I nodded.

“Now, my family, there you have the real characters.” She pointed to a photo of a stout man with laughing eyes. “That was my father, Jorge Canales, your great-grandfather. Fought for independence, first against the Spanish then the Americans. In his last years, founded orphanages throughout the western part of the island.”

She pointed to the woman next to him. “My stepmother. A good woman, but not very loving.”

She looked up, searching the wall. “My mother,” she said, her voice fading as she continued searching for a picture. “There,” she pointed to a portrait of a slender, young woman with a sad face. “Get it for me, Rennie.”

I retrieved the photo, set in a beautiful wooden frame. She dusted it off and held it lovingly in her hands.

“She died of tuberculosis when I was two,” she said, and forced a smile. “Your great-grandmother.” I nodded and mumbled, “Thanks,” not completely knowing why.

Through the photos, she introduced me to other members of her family. An Uncle Paco who ran off to sea and never came back, the camera capturing him looking away, distracted; a somber Manolín, months before he joined a circus; Aunt Matilde, demure in a frilly dress, who eventually turned to men's clothing and chewing tobacco; a brother, David, manufacturer and distributor of “pitorro” or Puerto Rican moonshine, mugging it up for the camera. He went off to Korea and got killed. Before leaving, she showed me a photo of Miguel, my grandfather's brother, and my resemblance to him was indeed uncanny, scary almost. Except he was much better looking.

“He was the youngest, un enamorao, a skirt chaser,” Abuela said, “until he found the love of his life, who destroyed him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He lost her and drank himself to death.”

I leaned forward to get a closer look at Miguel, trying to find insight into that type of self-consuming passion.

“That's the past, Rennie,” she told me as she hooked her arm around mine. “Let's go meet the living, okay?” She turned off the lights in the room and shut the door.

Downstairs, the music erupted. A trio had been hired; the older folks had decided on the music, much to the disappointment of the younger members of the clan. They set up quickly and began their repertoire of ballads and up-tempo oldies. During the breaks a DJ was promised to play hip hop for the youngsters. The music inaugurated and invigorated the activities. Where before folks wandered about, huddled in isolated bunches, now the music brought people closer to the center, where a large tent harbored long tables. The caterers stepped up their activity, shuttling heavy trays of food to the waiting Sterno burners. To the side, a pig roasted on a spit, to the amazement of the children. Nearby, one of the cooks attended to a big vat full of boiling oil, in which a turkey was being fried. Family dogs were brought along, the younger ones excitable with the commotion, while the older canines escaped to a shady corner.

Abuela led me to the balcony, from where we had a good view of the activity.

Round tables and folding chairs laid out on a wide clearing accommodated the approximately sixty people in attendance. Behind a sturdy bar, two young women moved like dervishes taking orders, mixing, lining up shots of Bacardi and Barrelito, uncorking wine, throwing ice in glasses, popping beer bottles. A photographer roamed around, cameras hanging from his neck, snapping pictures and joking with his subjects. He avoided bumping into the videographer, who didn't enjoy competing for shots. Both gravitated to a skinny young man in cargo pants, presumably a cousin, holding a parrot on his forearm. Video Guy told Camera Guy to hurry up and take his stupid pictures so he could work. The latter, less serious and having more fun, said something humorous and dismissive and snapped away.

The bird, a twelve-inch beauty, flapped its green wings and preened itself, stretching its neck and head feathers. Its eyes, encircled in white and peering over the red band above its beak, looked on quizzically at everyone staring at him. It was an iguaca, or Puerto Rican parrot, a critically endangered species.

Abuela noticed that Don Marco was sipping beer. “That man is going to kill himself with his bad habits. He shouldn't be drinking.”

She went off after him, urging me to come down. I wondered if I could ever begin to connect to any of these people below—people whose genetic material I partially shared—in any meaningful way. So many of them, family yet strangers. Marisol interrupted my reverie as she slid her hand under my T-shirt and ran her fingernails halfway down my back. She joined me in a moment looking down at all the movement.

“It's a circus down there,” she said. “Let's get something to eat, I'm starving.”

Heading toward the food tent, Julia grabbed me. She had drunk a few glasses of wine. “Do you mind if I borrow my baby for a minute?” She directed this to Marisol, but didn't wait for an answer.

“Get me some food,” I yelled back to her as Julia dragged me to meet her siblings.

This first encounter initiated a series of unfortunate introductions. “This is your nephew,” she said to Tere, the youngest, living in Barcelona with her husband, the banker; and Justin, an accountant like his father, who relished every bit the role of eldest son. They looked at me like a specimen, pulling back their craned heads while nodding in agreement or in a dumb affirmation of reality.

Later, Julia told me she had prepared most of the closest relatives. This would account for their lack of surprise, but what their faces expressed was a mystery. The siblings did not necessarily look pleased or dismayed; their expressions mostly resembled bored indifference.

“Buenas,” said Justin, and then added something like welcome to the family, while extending a hairy, pale hand.

I stared at his bespectacled pale, stubbled face and his little, crooked teeth as he smiled. “Gracias,” I answered and walked toward the food.

Julia grabbed me again. “Wait, I want to introduce you to other people.”

“Can't that wait, I'm famished here.” She smirked and relented. “I'll tell them to go say hi where you're eating.”

Great, I thought, meeting the family hordes while trying to enjoy a meal. “At least he's tall and good looking,” I heard Tere say as I walked away.

Marisol had set me up with a hearty plate of food. We were both hungry and started digging into the food. The drinks, and perhaps the sun, had us a bit buzzed, and we were enjoying each other's company.

And then the steady procession of family members began. First, Don Marco came over and almost squeezed the food out of me. Slaps to the back pushed me forward, and if Marisol had not held on to me, I would have fallen. He had this deep, donkey-type laugh, that Marisol imitated all through our ride back and had me cracking up. Then came the uncles, aunts, some of whom just found out about this mysterious grandnephew. They welcomed me but, even with my young age, I knew that on the drive back home they would gossip—or in the local vernacular, pelar, peel
poor Julia, who drank another glass of wine, talking to her parents. A conversation with few words. Both grandparents stood stiff, arms crossed. She looked so alone. Suddenly, I didn't think this was some torture I had to endure. Poor Julia, I thought.