Ever since Mariano began to grow fond of Isabel, he thought less of Maria, the Catalan girl he met on the boat. Going out with Isabel, he lost the habit of sitting at the door of the pharmacy, anxiously waiting for the postman to arrive. Until one morning he received the letter he had been waiting for. He tore the envelope and took out the two sheets of thin paper eagerly. He read the first few lines impatiently and learned that Maria had been very ill. He stopped and sighed, but then, as he continued reading, he became short of breath and had to sit down.
Mrs. Valls was the first on the farm to be infected, and she died before the doctor arrived. Maria fell ill a few days later and spent several weeks between life and death. Mr. Valls, after burying his wife in the most remote part of the garden of the estate, took care of Maria day and night, not wanting anyone else to attend to her. He took great care of her, and little by little she recovered.
When Maria was fully recovered, Mr. Valls and Alfredo, the butler, fell ill, one after the other. The two men had lived many years under the same roof, first in Catalonia and then in Cuba. Alfredo had seen his owner born and had a great appreciation for him. He would have given his life for him. Despite his obvious symptoms of fever and jaundice, Alfredo took care of his master until he broke down and began to become delirious, then Maria took care of both of them. At night, she would spend hours and hours at the bedside of the two men, putting wet rags on their foreheads, giving them water and whispering to them that little by little they would be cured. Maria prayed that they would get well. During the day she rested for a few hours, leaving the two sick men in the hands of a servant who had already survived the disease.
After a week of very high fever, Mr. Valls’ fever broke, but he had to stay in bed for a few more days. His skin was yellow and he was so weak that it was not known if he would live, but in the end he survived. Alfredo, like most of the servants, did not have the same good fortune. He died in the arms of Ramón Valls, who wanted to bury him next to Eulalia, his wife, even knowing that she detested him.
Yellow fever caused many deaths, especially on the plantations where slaves lived in barracks. For more than two centuries (from the 17th to the 19th), yellow fever was a mysterious disease that ravaged the tropical areas of America and Africa causing devastating epidemics. No one knew where the plague had come from or how to cure it.
It took a few years for universities to begin to deal with the pandemic. Between 1883 and 1897, several scientists believed they had identified the causative agent, but their theories did not find consensus. A few years later, a team of Cuban surgeons and microbiologists began working on a hypothesis: mosquitoes served as an intermediate host for the yellow fever parasite. At the beginning of the 20th century, different investigations sought to identify the cause of transmission using questionable methods. Some doctors and volunteers, who allowed themselves to be inoculated with germs of the disease, gave their health and their lives for science and only many years later was it discovered that this parasite was a virus.
After the epidemic, the Valls’ estate fell into disrepair, and the few servants and day laborers who had survived the pandemic fled. Many of the cattle, horses, cows, oxen, and bulls were stolen, some cattle died, while others escaped. Maria could have left the farm too, but she didn't have the courage to do so. She felt the impulse to escape and find Mariano in Havana; but in the end, she decided not to leave. She opted to help Mr. Valls who had been left completely alone. Maria, the puny girl, who was afraid of everything when she arrived in Cuba, took charge of the Valls’ cattle ranch.
The months went by. Ramón Valls made a full recovery and, with Maria's help, began to take care of the farm chores. They bought cattle, horses, cows, oxen, pigs, and other livestock, hired a new cook, a handful of servants, day laborers, and set up the corrals again.
In those days Mr. Valls did not stop praising Maria, telling her that she had been his saving angel. He felt tenderness and love for this loyal girl who had saved his life and property. A few weeks later he asked her to be his wife. After the death of Mrs. Valls, Maria began to care more deeply for Ramón Valls. Caring for each other during their illness brought them together. They were as happy as two children who have been given freedom after a punishment. They felt at ease without the annoying and impertinent Mrs. Valls, who had never enjoyed living in Cuba and who was angry and quarreled with everyone. Maria accepted her master's marriage proposal without hesitation.
Mariano read the last part of the letter three times, trying to catch a glimmer of hope, but he couldn't. He continued reading the letter:
I felt weak, but I had to persist. At the farm we were falling one by one. You can't imagine how horrible it was. We didn't know where to bury the dead. But now, thank God, it's all over. The letter in which you asked me if I wanted to be your wife, came to me a few days ago. I am flattered that you appreciate me so much, but at that time I had made my decision to marry Ramón Valls and I don't think that if I had received your letter earlier I would have changed anything. Ramon has been very good to me. I am very grateful to him and I am beginning to love him. On the boat I was attracted to you, too, but then we were apart for so long. I was waiting for you for five long years, but everything changed after yellow fever. I'd like you to come to the farm. Ramón knows that we write to each other and would be happy for you to come and see us. He's a very good person. I hope you are doing well and that you manage to carry out your projects.
I will always remember you.
María Plana Tarradas
Mariano spent two days reflecting before answering Maria. When he did, he promised her that when the war ended, he would rent a horse-drawn carriage to go see her, but that at the present time he could not do so because the political situation in Cuba was getting worse instead of improving.
“I'm losing the people I love the most. I've taken too long to go look for Maria. I should have made up my mind sooner," he said to himself. However, after a few weeks he was encouraged that it was time to return to Catalonia. "I have to prepare well for my return home," he said to himself, quite convinced, even though he feared that when he arrived in Spain he might be arrested.
In 1876, the Third Carlist War came to an end; but in reality, Catalonia continued to fight until the beginning of 1878, especially through bloodthirsty guerrilla tactics that caused hundreds of deaths on both sides. As a result, Mariano had to delay his visit to Maria and his departure from Cuba for another year.
He continued to work in the pharmacy, but reluctantly because he did not get along very well with Josep, Jose Sarrá's nephew who took charge of the pharmacy after his uncle's death. Ignatius, the other nephew, returned to Spain, angry that his uncle had not named him in his will. Mariano missed his old benefactor and friend, who had returned to Barcelona to take care of his sick wife, but it was Jose, and not his wife, who died a few months later of a heart attack. Before Jose Sarrá died, Mariano wrote him some letters, but he never told him about his nephew's bad temper, because he did not want to embarrass him.
Josep was a young and intelligent man but very nervous. He slept little and worked at night looking for remedies for tropical diseases. He always wore a white coat and never took off his glasses. He was brilliant as a pharmaceutical chemist, but he didn't know how to treat people. He was sullen and fussy about everyone. He screamed and had no patience with anyone, only delighting in doing experiments in his laboratory or cleaning the cages of his little birds. Mariano sometimes watched him and didn't understand how a man so affectionate with his canaries was so grumpy with his employees. He was a heartless bachelor who got angry with the cook every morning, who was a very dutiful and agreeable mulatto woman.
Mariano could not help but overhear Josep's reproaches to the cook: “I don't understand why it is such a struggle to bake a loaf of bread and make me a couple of slices of bread with tomato. You get how to make birria; and when baking the bread, it's not the fault of the flour or the water of Havana. The problem is that you do it with a reluctant attitude.” Then he would calm down and say to her without shouting so much, “I've been telling you for weeks, put your heart in it, but you act like it's nothing.”
Mr. Sarrá's nephew had changed cooks several times, but he was always dissatisfied and complained about them all. “Poor cooks! What patience we all have to have with this angry man!” Mariano said to himself every time he heard his squeaky voice! Josep spoke to Mariano in Catalan and almost never shouted at him. It was mainly with the other help that his bad temper came out.
One day in the pharmacy Mariano overheard a customer, a man from Reus, tell Josep that he was looking for an accountant. Mariano didn't think twice, and the next day he went to the store of the Catalan merchant, who bought fabrics in Catalonia and sold them in Cuba, to talk to him.
At the beginning of 1878, Mariano got a job in the office of Mr. Reus and rented a small room on the street of San Ignacio. After some difficult discussion sessions, he managed to leave the pharmacy, but Josep was very upset that he was leaving. “What shameless audacity! That's how you repay us for everything the Sarrá family has done for you. If you go out that door, you won't be able to come back in,” Josep shouted at him.
Mariano left, upset by the pharmacist's words, forgetting that he had hidden his silver coins in a beam in the back room. In order to recover them, it took several months and he had to bribe a servant, as Josep ordered the servants not to let him in for any reason.
The pot-bellied gentleman from Reus turned out to be a grumbler, but Mariano endured several months of working in his office because he did not want to admit in any way that he had made a mistake by leaving the pharmacy. Maria continued to write him letters, and she invited him several times to the farm but Mariano kept postponing the visit.
King Alfonso XII, son of Isabella II, reigned in Spain after the failure of the Republic and in 1878 put a definitive end to the Carlist guerrillas. In Cuba, the conflict between the mother country and the separatists also had a few years of tranquility. Finally, in February 1878, a lackluster pact was signed between the Spaniards and the separatists. Exhausted by the war, the worthless agreement solved nothing and conceded very little to the rebel cause. Outraged and disillusioned, General Maceo made his disagreement known at the Baraguá Protest, but, after a brief frustrated attempt to resume the war in 1879 (the so-called little war), both he and Gómez disappeared into prolonged exile.
Taking advantage of the period of peace in both countries, Mariano thought that the right time had come to leave his job as an accountant and return to Spain; however, circumstances had changed.
Mariano was waiting for Miguel and the captain to return to Havana to embark on their ship, but one morning Pedro showed up at the office where Mariano worked, to ask him to join the commercial partnership he founded years ago with his brothers. Pedro told Mariano that he was needed because Pablo, his older brother, had fallen ill. A cerebral embolism had left the right side of his body paralyzed.
“Pepe and I only know how to assist the clients in the store, that's why we need you to help with the business portion of the store.”
Pablo was the one who had been dedicated to buying goods and keeping the accounts. Mariano couldn't miss this opportunity, so he postponed his trip to Barcelona again and moved to live on Mercaderes Street, next to the three brothers' shop. He was pleased that he could finally go into the seed trade.
He telegraphed Miguel to bring him seeds from Spain. When Miguel and the captain arrived in Havana, it was a great joy for him to be able to hug them and unload the merchandise he had asked for. He paid for the sacks of seeds with his silver coins and immediately sold them in the shop. Later he also traded in potatoes for planting, and little by little the shop of the Barcelona brothers began to flourish.
In 1880, Mariano received a letter from Felipe. The letter arrived at the store one spring morning, but he did not open it for many hours. He was afraid, for he still remembered his disappointment after reading Maria's long-awaited letter. Alone in the evening, he opened the envelope and began to read it. Felipe told him that he was living hidden in the countryside, that he couldn't tell him where, and he spoke enthusiastically about José Martí:
. . . When the time came, the man we needed appeared. José Martí is simple, generous, and clever, he is a poet, and he is a visionary and an intellectual (he has studied in Cuba and Spain). He has become a patriotic figure for all of us who want a free Cuba. Completely dedicated to the cause of peaceful resistance, Martí writes, dialogues, petitions and organizes the independence of Cuba. I help him and I believe in him. I hope that it will never come to arms again . . .
I'll come by shortly. If all goes well, I'll come to pick you up in a horse-drawn carriage at dusk on the first Saturday of the full moon.
A hug.
Felipe
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