House on the Lagoon (49 page)

Slowly I got up from where I had fallen on my knees. Somehow I managed to hold on to the steering wheel with one hand and the gearshift with the other. I swung the boat around and pushed down full-throttle. The boat lurched forward as we raced back under the terrace. Quintín was facing me, about to strike me again. He never saw the iron beam approaching. It hit the back of his head, and he fell forward into the mangroves. I cut the engine, slowed the boat, and looked on with an almost surreal awareness. Quintín lay motionless off the starboard side, floating facedown in the water, half lying on the mangrove roots. Then I saw the crabs moving slowly toward him.

I left him there and quietly pushed out toward the lagoon. When I looked back at the shore, I could see the flames shooting out of the Art Nouveau windows. And there was Manuel standing guard on the golden terrace, machine gun at his hip, watching the house on the lagoon burn to the ground.

Rosario Ferré was born in Puerto Rico, where her father served as governor. She holds a doctorate in Spanish from the University of Maryland. She is best known for her novels and short stories. Her literary career began with the publication of the controversial literary journal
Zona
.
Carga y Descarga
in 1972, and her first short story collection,
The Youngest Doll
, was published in 1976. She has been a faculty member at the University of Puerto Rico, Rutgers University, and Johns Hopkins University. In 1992, Ferré was awarded the Liberatur Prix award at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the German translation of her novel
Sweet Diamond Dust
. She was a finalist for the National Book Award for her novel
The House on the Lagoon
in 1995. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from Brown University and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in creative arts. She was also the recipient of the prestigious Medal for Literature of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in 2009. Rosario Ferré lives in Puerto Rico with her family.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1995 by Rosario Ferré

Cover design by Mauricio Diaz

978-1-4804-8174-9

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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