one of the older schooners owned by Marítima Argoso Marín. The decks and timbers were mottled with mysterious stains, and the boards were nicked, scratched, and haphazardly patched. In spite of the relatively calm seas, Ramón and Inocente were seasick the first two days, and Ana ran from one cabin to the other soothing and comforting as she controlled her own nausea. The cramped passenger cabins emitted the smells of moisture, human effluvia, and animal musk. As they sailed toward the equator, the cabins became insufferably hot. Ana spent as much time as she could on deck, gulping the fresh air, reading, and trying to forget that she was confined on a creaking vessel in the middle of a vast ocean. One day she looked up from her book and noticed something that she hadn’t thought about before. The horizon was at eye level. To change her perspective, she stood along the rail looking towardSpain, and later peeked through the narrow porthole of their cabin belowdecks toward their destination in Puerto Rico, expecting the horizon to be lower or higher depending on where she was standing. But no matter what position she took, her past and future coalesced at eye level, immutable, unavoidable, but at the same time ever changing as her past folded into her future and the
Antares
sailed toward her destiny.
HER SMALL PERSON
The horizon was smudged, like a bruise, but as the
Antares
approached land, a veiled green pyramid emerged from the haze. Ana grabbed Ramón’s arm and bounced on her toes, unable to contain her excitement.
“Is that it?”
Ramón wove her left hand through his elbow, and brought her gloved fingers to his lips. “We’ll soon be inside the harbor.”
“You can make out San Felipe del Morro.” Inocente pointed to a mustard-colored headland over the frothing surf.
“It’s huge!”
“Impregnable,” Inocente added. “Spanish military engineering at its best.”
Other passengers pushed closer to the rail, craned their necks, adjusted their hats and bonnets to shade their eyes from the blinding sun. Crewmen hopped around the deck in a dance of sail lowering, rope loosening, latch securing, and the tying down of canvas-wrapped bundles. As the vessel glided through the protected passage into the broad harbor, Ana’s breath quickened. This is it, she thought, Puerto Rico. A sense of déjà vu made her dizzy.
“Now I know what my ancestors must have felt,” she said, “seeing land after weeks at sea.…”
“Let’s hope we have the luck of those who became rich and not the luck of those eaten by the Caribs,” muttered Inocente.
Ramón and Ana laughed. Some passengers standing nearby glanced at them nervously and gave them a bit more room. The brothers exchanged an amused look over Ana’s head. She put her other arm through Inocente’s so that they were linked to each other through her. She sighed happily as the walled city came into view.
“At last,” she said softly. “We’re here at last.”
She closed her eyes and mentally etched the date into memory: Wednesday, October 16, 1844.
It was early morning, and the harbor was thick with two- and three-masted schooners, barges, sloops, and fishing boats vying for lanes, most of them flying the red-and-gold Spanish flag. San Juan rose from the waterfront behind the thick walls that protected it from invasions and enemy attacks from the Atlantic Ocean. Wide swatches of green peppered the hill, gardens, or pastures—Ana couldn’t tell—but closely packed buildings intersected by roads and alleys defined most of the land. Several towers topped by crucifixes were scattered across the citadel, their bells echoing over the water. To Ana, San Juan looked like Cádiz, the city they’d left three thousand miles behind in Spain.
She freed her arms from Ramón and Inocente and turned to where verdant hills stretched east to west, the vegetation nearly unbroken by man-made structures. Low white clouds formed over the green, blackening the land
Antares
sailed toward her destiny.
HER SMALL PERSON
The horizon was smudged, like a bruise, but as the
Antares
approached land, a veiled green pyramid emerged from the haze. Ana grabbed Ramón’s arm and bounced on her toes, unable to contain her excitement.
“Is that it?”
Ramón wove her left hand through his elbow, and brought her gloved fingers to his lips. “We’ll soon be inside the harbor.”
“You can make out San Felipe del Morro.” Inocente pointed to a mustard-colored headland over the frothing surf.
“It’s huge!”
“Impregnable,” Inocente added. “Spanish military engineering at its best.”
Other passengers pushed closer to the rail, craned their necks, adjusted their hats and bonnets to shade their eyes from the blinding sun. Crewmen hopped around the deck in a dance of sail lowering, rope loosening, latch securing, and the tying down of canvas-wrapped bundles. As the vessel glided through the protected passage into the broad harbor, Ana’s breath quickened. This is it, she thought, Puerto Rico. A sense of déjà vu made her dizzy.
“Now I know what my ancestors must have felt,” she said, “seeing land after weeks at sea.…”
“Let’s hope we have the luck of those who became rich and not the luck of those eaten by the Caribs,” muttered Inocente.
Ramón and Ana laughed. Some passengers standing nearby glanced at them nervously and gave them a bit more room. The brothers exchanged an amused look over Ana’s head. She put her other arm through Inocente’s so that they were linked to each other through her. She sighed happily as the walled city came into view.
“At last,” she said softly. “We’re here at last.”
She closed her eyes and mentally etched the date into memory: Wednesday, October 16, 1844.
It was early morning, and the harbor was thick with two- and three-masted schooners, barges, sloops, and fishing boats vying for lanes, most of them flying the red-and-gold Spanish flag. San Juan rose from the waterfront behind the thick walls that protected it from invasions and enemy attacks from the Atlantic Ocean. Wide swatches of green peppered the hill, gardens, or pastures—Ana couldn’t tell—but closely packed buildings intersected by roads and alleys defined most of the land. Several towers topped by crucifixes were scattered across the citadel, their bells echoing over the water. To Ana, San Juan looked like Cádiz, the city they’d left three thousand miles behind in Spain.
She freed her arms from Ramón and Inocente and turned to where verdant hills stretched east to west, the vegetation nearly unbroken by man-made structures. Low white clouds formed over the green, blackening the land
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