Hector

  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 h
er 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.