The vigor returns to Papa’s voice. “My father was an heir to Spanish greatness. Born of dignity, fortitude, courage, pride. When I was a boy, a Spanish general rode up to our front door. General Weyler Valeriano. The Butcher, they called him.”
“Manuel,” Mamá says, in a warning tone, but Papa silences her with a raised hand. She sighs and pulls Mercedes onto her lap. He is going to tell us what he is going to tell us. Discreetly, I press my fingers in my ears and pretend his nose is the dial on the wireless that I can turn up or down with my eyes. He speaks so loudly, however, I cannot turn him off.
“It was February 24, 1897, the height of the rebellion. Valeriano had been sent over from Spain to suppress the insurgency. I was standing in my front yard dissecting a frog under our algaroba tree when he rode up to our house.” Papa’s voice drops a notch, serious as death. “The horse startled me, but when I looked up, I wasn’t frightened. The general had a mustache that curled down all the way to his chin, and he wore a white jacket with silver buttons that flashed in the sunlight. I thought he looked very fine and noble and that my mother would be pleased to have such a visitor. When he asked where my father was, I pointed to the door of the house. I didn’t know to lie. When my father stepped out and saw me pointing, there was fear in his eyes, and this froze me where I stood. I’d never seen my father afraid. At first, I thought he was afraid for himself, but after, I understood that he was afraid for me, too.” Papa pauses, clears his throat and continues. “The man slid from his horse and shoved my father to his knees. ‘Hail to the king of Spain!’ he ordered. My father said nothing. ‘Hail to the king of Spain,’ the general ordered again, and this time he drew his sword. It was long and thin with a marble handle and a blade as shiny as the bright green underbelly of the dead frog I still clutched in my hand. The sword looked heavy. Too heavy for me to lift or wrestle away from him. I didn’t look at my father’s face, which was cowardly of me. Instead, I stared at the puddle he knelt in. Mamá was washing clothes down at the river, and I worried she’d have to make a second trip to wash the mud from his pants. I didn’t know how much harder blood was to get out. You think this is bad?” I jump in my seat as Papa flings an arm toward the window, drawing our attention from the story to the ruckus outside. I don’t understand what is going on out there any more than I understand why he is telling us this story.
As if suddenly regretting the retelling of this moment, Papa abruptly ends with a single sentence. “I was five years old when I saw my father quartered in front of me for not hailing to the king of Spain.”
The room is silent. Quartered? You quarter an avocado or a coconut. How do you quarter a human? With a sword, it would seem.
I am no longer hungry. The house feels eerie and still without the servants. Under the table, I reach for Danita’s hand. Her palm is as sweaty as mine. Bebo starts to whimper. No one comforts him. Even a story of our grandfather being hacked to pieces is no excuse for a boy to cry. Glancing at our terrified faces, Mamá says soothingly, “Nothing like that is going to happen here. That was a different time and a different war.”
Papa, intent on holding our terror, presses his knuckles into the table and stands. “This is no different. It’s the oppressed fighting back just as they did with Spain. Machado changed the constitution so he could maintain power. Por amor de Cristo, he ran for reelection against himself!”
“Manuel!” Mamá cries. No amount of injustice is worth taking the Lord’s name in vain.
Papa ignores her. “Machado’s closed the high schools as well as the university. Students and professors have been beaten and arrested. They’re left with no choice but to fight back. Armed action is the only thing that’s ever proved successful at ridding this country of corrupt power.”
Mamá shakes her head vigorously. “The Directorio is not an army or a government. It’s a reckless, irresponsible, student-organized rebellion.” I picture kids in military jackets swinging swords on a playground. “They demand economic and political reform and then go and use the same violence and corruption as Machado’s regime to get it. It’s hypocritical. Politics in this country has always been about ascendency. There’s no heroics in it. No national unity, no purpose. It’s just men vying for power.”
I understand none of these big words, but Mamá’s confidence is reassuring. No one is going to chop us up with a sword, I tell myself.
“The Directorio is not really in charge, Maria.” Papa sounds patronizing, as if Mamá has simply misunderstood the situation. Didn’t he tell us the Directorio had taken over? “Fulgencio Batista’s low-level army is rising to power. They’ll be the ones in charge soon. Batista is a powerful man, from what I hear, and an admirable one. A laborer who rose up out of nothing. A man who will no longer be forced to the bottom of the pile, and I say hurrah for him.”
Mamá stands up so fast Mercedes tumbles to the floor with a wail. “I know perfectly well who Batista is. I will not have you revere this man in front of our children!”
“I’ll revere whoever I like.” Papa sounds churlish and smug. Nothing like I imagine his noble, proud father sounded.
Trembling, Mamá walks over to him. “How dare you,” she says, and Papa’s hand springs out and strikes her across the face. The force sends her to her knees.
It is a slap to put her in her place, just like how she slaps us. We’ve seen Papa hit her before, but this time it’s different. Something irreparable is happening, a tear in the seam of our family, a moment that will lead to Mamá getting on a plane with me nine years later, my parents’ prideful, stubborn beliefs destroying an already-fragile marriage.
After being struck, Mamá stays bent over on our Persian rug. Mercedes stops wailing and shoves her fingers in her mouth, snot running over her hand. Bebo begins to sob, and Manuel kicks him under the table. I feel numb with confusion. Across from me Oneila hangs her head. This is all her fault, I think. She should never have asked that stupid question in the first place.
I slip from my chair and go to Mamá, pressing my hand into her fleshy thigh. The touch rouses her, and she stands up, snapping her skirt into place and swinging a pointed finger between us. “You remember this day,” she says. “You remember this day when your papa betrayed us.”
“Maria,” Papa says in an exasperated voice that he might use on one of us. She is being a silly girl, his tone says, an unreasonable woman.
Mamá ignores him. Since I am the nearest, she snatches my hand and says, “Come,” and I mimic her prideful stride into the kitchen where she picks up a plantain, lays it on the cutting board and chops the top off with one swift blow of the knife, like she’s beheading it. “I’ve seen Aayla fry these. It can’t be too hard. From now on this will be breakfast. Peel,” she snaps, handing me the plantain.