Chapter 19 Teresita and Francisco

 

The children of José Defaus and Teresa Moragas who were most alike were Mariano and Francisco. Both were insightful and had piercing blue eyes along with reddish hair. When Mariano went to Cuba, Francisco had just turned nine years old and was the most serious and sagacious of all the brothers. From a young age, he began to read on his own the books that his teacher lent him. He would take them to the attic, his favorite place in the house, and disappear for hours and hours.

His mother got along very well with him and did not scold him when he acted without asking permission or when he disappeared. “I prefer ten Franciscos over one Isidro!” she shouted at her son Isidro, running after him with a wooden ladle. When Isidro was expelled from the seminary, Francisco entered that sad building without a complaint. It was not difficult for him to adapt to the school routine, where he followed the same tactic as at home: he found the attic and he would hide there to read. There he found closets, mattresses, broken chairs, and various other junk. Being so silent and diligent, the priests who taught him, immediately began to praise him. He was a model student, and according to Father Prior he was going to become a good priest. However, Francisco was very clear that he was not going to be a clergyman. At school he did not make many friends. He liked to be alone and dealt with the events of his family with quite a bit of detachment: Mariano, who does not return from Cuba, Marieta's wedding, Isidro at sea, Juan who goes to war, falls ill and in the end, he marries Teresita.

The first time he returned home and saw his sister-in-law, he felt a pang in his chest. He liked that girl, but being his brother's wife he had to get her out of his head. He would sneak away so he wouldn't have to talk to her. Teresita was a girl with thick black hair, lively eyes, full lips and a dark complexion; she looked like a mulatta. Her family was from a nearby village, but she had an Andalusian grandmother, from whom she had inherited her smiling and extroverted character. She loved talking to people and had become friends with all the neighbors.

Since Teresita appeared in the house on Oller Street, Francisco began to spend more time in Malgrat, but he continued to avoid his sister-in-law. He had a hard time when his brother Juan died of pneumonia. In addition to the sadness of that loss, he had a feeling that he would have to leave the seminary and that the responsibility of taking care of his family would fall on him, being the only male child left in the family home.

Francisco was nineteen years old when his parents told him that he had to marry his sister-in-law. “Teresita is the ideal woman for you, but she has to get pregnant before celebrating the wedding,” his father told him abruptly.

“Have you lost your mind? How am I going to force Teresita to sleep with me?”

“I'll talk to her,” his father told Francisco very seriously.

“It seems like a very crazy idea to me,” Francisco answered.

“José, you get ahead of yourself! I don't want to lose Teresita either, but we can't force her to do that,” Teresa said.

“The parish priest told me that we must act quickly, because a widow cannot live under the same roof as her deceased husband's unmarried brother.”

“Father, don't say anything to the poor girl, I implore you," said Francisco.

“Let me be, I know what I'm doing. If you don't marry Teresita I'm going to disinherit you.”

“José, have you gone crazy?” his wife asked him, whimpering.

“Look Francisco, I give you three months.”

Francisco left the kitchen with his head down. He liked Teresita, but he didn't know how to do what his father asked him to do.

José Defaus Ballesté, being very stubborn, sent for Teresita that same day to come to his office and told her: “We are so happy with you that we don't want you to leave, but for appearances and to save your honor it is not good for you to live in the same house as Francisco. You should marry him.”

“I am also very comfortable with you, but this seems hasty to me. I know very little about Francisco,” Teresita replied.

“You have three months to decide if you want to stay in this house or return to your father's house.”

“Thank you for the trust you have in me, but love has to be a reciprocal thing.”

“Stop loving things and think about your future! Ah! I forgot, before the wedding you have to get pregnant.”

“Pregnant! Do you want me to go against religious principles?”

“Teresita, the parish priest says that it is a special case, that what you and Francisco are going to do to save your reputation is not a sin.”

“Not having had children with Juan, you and the priest are afraid that I will be sterile.”

“No Teresita, not that, we just want you to stay in this house.”

“And what does Francisco say? He always avoids me.”

“No, woman! I'm going to take care of Francisco.”

Teresita went to her bedroom, where she began to cry. She felt humiliated and had a feeling that José Defaus was going to force her son to marry her, threatening to disinherit him.

“I'm sure that Francisco doesn't love me and even though we've lived for a few months under the same roof, I don't know anything about him,” she said to herself, sobbing.

Not knowing how to act, she went to tell Mercedes, her best friend. “Do you like Francisco?” Mercedes asked her point blank.

“Yes, he seems like a good guy to me, but he is very shy. When he sees me, he moves away. How are we going to have a child?”

“I don't know what to tell you Teresita, maybe it would be better if you left that house. But where are you going to go? If I could, I would welcome you into our home. But you know that since my father is sick we have been going through hardships.”

“I hope your father gets better.”

“The doctor says he will be cured. It's pneumonia, but he's already on sick leave.”

“I'm really glad. . .” She was silent for a few seconds and then added, “I don't want to leave, I get along very well with my mother-in-law.”

“Well, I would let Francisco act, to see what happens.”

“I don't know what to do, really!”

“You don't do anything.”

Another afternoon she went to see her father, who told her: “You are a poor widow, you have no choice but to accept the wedding with Francisco. We cannot welcome you back, we have too many mouths to feed”

“Do what your father says,” her aunt begged her, crying.

She also went to talk to the priest, who made her dizzy with the number of things he said to her, trying to convince her to accept the offer from her late husband's family. But she was hesitant. One day she remembered the books that Francisco left on the dining room chairs, the town teacher lent them to him. Therefore she decided to go see him for advice.

The teacher told her that it was not fair that a woman should be forced to marry a man she hardly knew and advised her to write a letter to Francisco. “The correspondence, to avoid raising suspicions, can pass through my house,” the teacher told her.

And when she told him that Francisco was avoiding her, he replied, “He is still very young and inexperienced in love. He feels self-conscious in front of you.”

Teresita wrote a letter to Francisco.

Dear Francisco,

As in a dream, I entered your house at the age of eighteen. Juan was five years older than me. He was always kind to me and respected me during the time we lived together. You may be wondering if I loved him. I can confess that I admired him for his kindness and intelligence and that I suffered a lot when he died. Juan was my only and faithful suitor since I was fifteen. Even though I was afraid of him at first, little by little I got used to him. My parents, being poor, saw a good match in Juan. I couldn't let them down, so, without being in love, I agreed to marry him.

My marriage did not last very long, but in that year I have learned many things. All your family members were good to me. They always supported me, even when I proposed remodeling the mansion, something that no one had ever done before. You always avoid me. From time to time you leave a book on a chair in the dining room, which I read while you are all taking a nap. Have I offended you in something without realizing it?

I would love to talk to you.

I hope you answer me

Teresita

Francisco answered her that same day and from then on he continued writing long letters that he took to the teacher to give to Teresita. Little by little, they began to get to know each other and by letter they made an appointment to meet secretly in the attic of the house. Every night they talked by the light of a candle until they fell dead with sleep. The first thing they did was start conversations about the books that Francisco lent Teresita, but as the days went by their feelings began to emerge and the letters were less formal and more passionate; however, when they saw each other in the attic they were distanced and did not dare to approach.

One night Teresita told him:

“I'm really liking the last book you left on my chair.”

“Which book was that? I don't remember anymore,” Francisco said, playing dumb, so that she wouldn't notice that he had turned red.

“Madame Bovary by Flaubert.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. Emma, the protagonist, is unhappy with her husband; she dreams of passionate love that she cannot find even with her lover.”

“Yes, while I was reading it I felt sorry for her, but also for her doctor husband. The poor man didn't know how to show love to Emma.”

The next night while they were still talking about Emma Bovary, Francisco took her hand, caressed her hair and kissed her. Teresita hugged him. They fell on an old mattress in the attic and they loved each other with a passion unprecedented for two people with so little experience in love. The days passed and they continued to love each other and were happy despite all the complications that that clandestine love entailed.

After a few weeks Teresita discovered that she was pregnant. At that time, her father-in-law, seeing that nothing was happening, told her that he could no longer wait and that the next day a car would take her to her hometown, where her aunt would give her shelter.

Francisco blushed when he announced to his parents that Teresita was expecting his child. Everyone jumped for joy, and they prepared the wedding quickly.

Francisco was in love with Teresita and seeing his parents happy, he thought that the time had come to take the reins of his father's businesses. He began to go out more, to go to church every Sunday, and to hang out with his father's friends: the notary, the veterinarian, the mayor and the town doctor.

One Sunday the priest told him: “You have to get away from the teacher and get closer to the church.”

“But the teacher is my friend.”

“You already know what I'm talking about, you owe me a favor. I saved your reputation and Teresita's, you can't continue being friends with a republican teacher, who by the way is going to have to leave town soon.”

“Don't throw him out! He's a good man.”

“I know, but he doesn't get close to the church and he is a bad influence on the students. I have spoken with the director and they are going to replace him.”

Francisco thought it was unfair what they were going to do to the teacher, but after the priest's threat he knew that he had to stop attending the gatherings that he organized in a café in town.

The poor teacher was fired and returned to Barcelona, where fortunately he was employed in a school recently founded by a group of young teachers with innovative pedagogical ideas and techniques, very close to the educational method that Maria Montessori disseminated in Italy a few years later. Francisco lost his best friend and the priest kept his promise: Francisco and Teresita's marriage was officially recognized. Francisco, little by little, abandoned his republican ideals and became a monarchist like his father.

The New century - Chapter 18

 

                                                   

                                                       

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.