The phone rang at Olivia and Felipe's house while they were reading a story aloud to a group of children. It was a muggy morning at the end of July 1898. Felipe left the students and went to the hall to answer the call. While he picked up the receiver, he was thinking that more than fifteen years had passed since the telephone had arrived in Cuba and that one of the first things they did when they arrived in Havana was install a telephone set.
“Hello, it’s Mariano.”
“How strange that you call at this time! Is anything wrong?”
“Last night when I arrived at the farm, I found a telegram announcing the death of my father.”
“I am very sorry! I didn't know he was sick,” Felipe answered.
“He had many ailments, but not enough to die. He had a heart attack. I just hope he didn't suffer too much.”
“Do you want me to come to the farm?”
“Don't worry, it's not necessary. Every time I receive a telegram I feel the impulse to pack my suitcase, go to the port, and leave for Barcelona with the first ship.”
“The other day, when you told me the reason why you had fled your country, I did not want to discourage you. But you should know that you cannot return to Spain, neither now nor before could you do so. You have a pending crime of rebellion for not having appeared in court and probably another for desertion, for not having enlisted in the army. I'm going to find out, but you stay calm and try to help your mother from here.”
While his friend was telling him that, Mariano thought about how stupid he had been imagining the trip back home and said to Felipe, “I have imagined myself getting on a boat that leaves the port of Havana, getting off in the port of Barcelona, and finally sitting in a train car that takes me to Malgrat” He was silent for a few seconds and added, “Right now, I'm going to send a telegram to my mother and write her a letter.”
“Tell her to install a telephone, so you can talk to her and tell her that you can't return to Spain. Telephone installation is very expensive, perhaps you could pay for it yourself.”
“I think that's an excellent idea. Thanks for your suggestion. I wouldn't have thought of that.”
“You already know how I feel about progress; the telephone is going to improve the lives of many people. In Havana, in March 1882, the first telephone service was inaugurated, in Spain it arrived a little later. I think that in your town there will be more than one telephone number. I read in a newspaper that last year on the Spanish peninsula there were more than twelve thousand numbers.”
“It has happened the same as with the railroad - you Cubans always get ahead of us in everything,” Mariano replied.
Teresa Moragas joyfully accepted the idea of putting a telephone in the house. When the two telephone company employees arrived to install the device, she told them, “It's a shame that my husband, may he rest in peace, cannot see this marvelous invention. Do you realize that I will be able to talk to my son who lives in Cuba and I haven't seen him in twenty-five years?”
“Madam, in your town there are only eight devices, you will have number nine.”
“Put it in the name of my son, Francisco Defaus Moragas.”
“Your son will have to sign.”
“While you are assembling the device and installing wires, I will send for him.”
Francisco arrived after twenty minutes and signed all the documents. Having a telephone at home was a luxury, not just anyone could afford to install one. The Defaus family would not have been able to afford it, but Mariano wanted to pay for the installation and all the bills, and he did not stop doing so until the day he died.
The device was hung on the wall near the desk in the bright room on the ground floor, which at that time became Francisco's office. It was the first time that Teresa had used a telephone, and she was excited and impatient to hear the voice of her beloved son.
“Mother, mother!” Mariano's voice seemed close and at the same time far away.
“My son! It's a miracle to hear you, you have a strange accent, but it's the same voice. And how pleased I am that you have not forgotten Catalan!”
“I will never forget my language and my land. Your voice, mother, has a lower tone, a little different than I remember!”
“Yes, I'm a little hoarse, but don't worry, I'm in good health. And you tell me, how are you? When are you coming back?”
“Mother, I have to confess that I can't go back. If I did, they would arrest me. A lawyer friend of mine has taken care of finding out.”
“Don't worry, I imagined that might be the case, but never forget about us!” she said with a trembling voice. “How are Nieves and the children?”
“We are all fine, despite these tumultuous times.”
Mother and son spoke for a long time, until an operator told them that they had to hang up. A few days later, Mariano was still thinking about the phone call. That call had not been what he had dreamed of - it bothered him that he felt that his house in Malgrat had stopped being his refuge.
Mariano continued calling his mother every week. Nieves and their two sons also called, and they did not stop telling their grandmother things. Juan already spoke well, and José only knew how to say a few words.
One day the boy Juan, as Gabriel affectionately called him, sang a song to his grandmother in Catalan. Teresa began to cry with joy and emotion.
When Spain withdrew from Cuba, the Spaniards living on the island had to ratify their decision to remain Spanish citizens and maintain that status. On March 3, 1900, Mariano registered in Pinar del Río and declared his wife, Nieves Herrera Herrera, and his five minor children. He did not want to renounce his status as a Spaniard, even though after the North American intervention in Cuba, the Spaniards began to be in a difficult position. He was always proud of his roots and continued to think that sooner or later he would be able to return to Catalonia, Spain.
The telephone calls between Pinar del Río and Malgrat were a celebration for everyone for more than two years, until in 1901, it appeared that Teresa suddenly suffered a stroke while cooking. She fell to the ground fainting. When Mariano found out, he suffered greatly knowing he would not be able to return to Spain. He felt helpless, and to alleviate his pain he called his mother on the phone every two days. She was paralyzed on the left side of her body, but she could hold the receiver with her other hand. With her crooked mouth she spoke poorly and could hardly be understood, but she was happy to hear the voice of her favorite son.
Upon receiving a telegram from Marieta, Isidro went to the Mataró telephone building to call his mother. Upon hearing his voice, Teresa cried with joy, because it had been a long time since she had heard from him, and she said with great effort, “I . . . have . . . always . . . loved . . . you . . . like . . . your . . . brothers.”
“I don't quite understand what you're telling me, mother. Now that you are sick, I don't want to blame you for feeling like you have no say, but you must know that I have suffered a lot.”
Teresa cried and despaired over the resentment her son still had toward her.
Francisco, hearing his mother's sobs, entered the room.
“Isidro, don't say that to our mother,” Francisco told him, grabbing the phone from Teresa's hand.
“Look who's talking, the authoritarian”
“Please, our mother is sick. Don't complicate things.”
“You and Mariano have always been her favorites. You kicked me out of the family,” Isidro said, raising his voice.
‘Isidro, no one kicked you out. Please calm down. Come to Malgrat to see your mother.”
“Now you want me to come back? It's too late,” he said, hanging up.
Francisco, Teresita, and Marieta lovingly cared for Teresa during the four weeks that elapsed from the first stroke to the second, which was fatal.
Teresa's death was a hard blow for everyone. Mariano, despite the long years he had spent away from his mother, felt like an orphan for the first time in his life. Nieves was scared, because she had never seen him in that state of depression. However, as the days passed, little by little Mariano returned to taking care of his tasks.
He was impatient to carry out a project that had been on his mind for a long time - on a piece of land on the estate, away from the mansion, he had a large school built for all the children in the surrounding area. Once the work had been completed, he took care of employing a couple of young teachers, buying books and teaching materials, and above all, going to pick up the children in the villages, to convince their parents, who often refused, to allow the children to go to school.
At that time, in both Spain and Cuba, the scars that the war had left them with were healing. On May 20, 1902, Cuba became an independent Republic, in theory. Despite the three years of blood, sweat, and sacrifice that the Spanish-American conflict lasted, no representative of Cuba or the other Spanish overseas colonies was invited to the historic peace treaty, signed in Paris in 1898. Spain renounced all rights, sovereignty, and property of its colonies. The Treaty of Paris is considered the end point of the Spanish empire and the beginning of the period of colonial power of the United States. The treaty promised Cuba's independence with conditions. Such conditions were included in the Platt Amendment, a clever addition to the United States Army Budget Act of 1901, which granted the United States the right to intervene militarily in Cuba whenever it deemed it appropriate. The United States also used its considerable influence to secure a naval base in Guantánamo Bay, in order to protect its strategic interests in the Panama Canal region. Despite discreet opposition in the United States and much greater opposition in Cuba, Congress approved the Platt Amendment, which was included in the Cuban Constitution of 1902. For many Cuban patriots, America only replaced Spain in the new role of colonizer and enemy.
A year later, Mariano called his brother Francisco to find out how they were. Since his brothers did not always answer his letters, Francisco told him what had happened to Isidro. “Isidro hasn't spoken to us in a while, but we learned from an errand boy in Mataró that his wife died last month. He abandoned his job as a barrel maker and embarked again for the south of France. His boat has disappeared on the high seas. It was swallowed by the waters during a storm.”
“I'm so sorry! I feel bad that our brother has been so unfortunate.”
“We found out by chance that he didn't want to talk to us. He didn't even come to mother's funeral.”
“When I went to Cuba, Isidro was ten years old. I remember him always playing with Juan, “the twins” as I used to call them. Mother never told me that Isidro didn't want to talk to us. Was he still living in Mataró?”
“Surely, she must have told you that our father forced him to embark, to keep him away from Agustina, a woman of ill repute. He worked for several years as a porter on ships that came and went from the south of France. He rarely returned home; however, when he came for Juan and Teresita's wedding, we noticed he was acting very strange. We thought it was because he had been called up to the army. He was always sullen and resentful. I think he never forgave our father for taking him away from home. When his military service ended after four years, he did not embark again. He rented a house on De Boters Street and became a barrel maker again. We knew that he married a certain María Teresa, but we never met her. Then they moved to Mataró.”
“Our mother never told me that last part. I only knew that he had embarked and opened a barrel workshop. I would have liked to have been able to talk to him. I wrote to him but he never answered me.”
Francisco did not tell him about the last conversation he had with Isidro a few days before his mother's death, so as not to upset him. Nor did he tell him what was said about him. He had run away with Agustina and the shipwreck was a ploy so that no one would follow them.
“It's just gossip,” Francisco told Teresita, the day the news reached them.
“Well, I hope that Isidro lives in France with Agustina and they will finally be happy,” Teresita answered.
Mariano wrote two or three letters a year to his siblings Francisco and Marieta, and he also had the habit of writing to all his friends.
He often called the three shopkeepers who continued to lead a carefree life. However, Pablo and Pepe were the first to feel the ailments of old age. Pablo, after the first bout of angina, got scared and hired Inés, a mulatto woman of about forty years of age, to act as their housekeeper. After a few months, Inés introduced them to her sister Paulina and asked if she could stay at the house and they accepted. Inés asked them the same question the following year and Josefina, the youngest sister, arrived with a small suitcase and a backpack full of books. Inés knew how to treat the three shopkeepers, she understood that they were never going to separate or even get married. Pepe and Pedro, with everything they had eaten and their heavy drinking, were developing illnesses in addition to gout and rheumatism. The three women were manna from heaven for them; they helped them in everything, be it at home or in the store. And as time passed, they naturally formed deepening relationships. Inés was attracted to Pablo's nobility and kindness, despite his physical weakness. She joked with him and made him dance. Paulina was very talkative and loved that Pepe listened to her. Josefina was the smartest and most independent of the three and did not want to fall into the networks of those men, but Pedro's compliments and flattery made her fall in love. However, Pablo, Pepe. and Pedro never married the three sisters who accompanied them and tenderly cared for them until their death.
Mariano also wrote to Miguel, who had left sailing and settled in the Canary Islands where he lived with his mother and a brother. With his savings he could lead a comfortable life and was never married. He started writing again for a local newspaper, but he missed the sea and every now and then he got on a boat. He didn't make long trips, but he needed to feel rocked by the waves. Some afternoons, he would visit the captain who had retired to his house in La Palma. He lived a very quiet life. However, every four or five years he undertook a trip to Cuba to see his friend.
He continued to correspond with María and Isabel. In order to not lose them completely, he sent them a postcard at Christma inviting them to the farm and they returned his correspondence. However, one winter Isabel stopped answering him. Mariano did not worry, because he knew from Lucas that she was fine. Mother and son corresponded thanks to the priest who had helped them.
At that time a group of soldiers went to search Isabel's home in search of the fugitive. She was afraid that her correspondence would be watched and that they would discover her son's hiding place, so she stopped writing. However, after several months, a letter arrived from Isabel, who for safety reasons, sent it to the three shopkeepers and they sent it to Mariano.
When the Spanish were driven out of Cuba by the Americans, Isabel again wrote letters directly to Mariano and went to the farm several times with Tomás, her husband, to see Lucas, her son, and Mariano. On those occasions. Isabel and Nieves began to know each other and get along well.
María wrote less, but from time to time she would stop by Esperanza with her husband, Ramón Valls and bring them the best pieces of beef from her cattle ranch.
Felipe and Mariano continued writing to each other, until one day Felipe’s letters stopped arriving at the farm. “Felipe concerns me! Sometimes he disappears. My last letter was returned. I think he no longer lives in Havana.”
“Don't worry, you will see that sooner or later he will appear.”
“I have also called him on the phone, but the operator told me that the number has been canceled.”
“I have a hunch! I think he's going to give us a surprise,” Nieves told him.
A few days after that conversation, Olivia and Felipe appeared at the farm. Gabriel saw them arrive while he was mounting the boy Juan on a horse, near the entrance gate. He carefully lowered the boy from the horse and walked towards the guests.
“I'm going to notify the masters of your arrival.”
Mariano and Nieves ran towards the entrance, making gestures with their arms.
“What saint has brought you! I was getting worried after not hearing from you,” Mariano scolded, hugging them and laughing.
“What a nice surprise!” Nieves told them.
“You don't have to worry about us. Now that times are peaceful, they no longer persecute us,” Felipe told them.
“I didn't know you liked being under the authority of the United States,” Mariano told him.
“Don't get me wrong, I would like Cuba to be truly free. But as I told you at the time, I look at the positive side of things. Thank heavens that now the war has ended. The Cuban people need long years of peace.”
While they were talking, Gabriel ran to prepare the patio table. He made lemonades and told the cook to roast corn and bananas and to cut slices of bread to be served with tomato and cheese.
