Infinite Devotion (13 page)

Sixth Life

The Spanish Crusade

Chapter 1

“Clean up, you little pig!” Hector shouts as he grabs the back of my shirt.

“Let me go!” I scream.

He puts my head in a chokehold and drags me back into the house. I can barely breathe with how tight his arm is pressing against my throat.

“I didn’t make that mess!”

“Of course, you did. Your mother makes your food and works all day to provide for you, so this is your mess to clean.”

I look around. There are plates left in the sink from our breakfast this morning. My mother is working so much since Hector is now worthless, and she doesn’t have much time to sweep and clean. She always asks Hector to clean while she’s gone, and this is how Hector cleaned.

“Clean or I’m going to get the crop.”

“Fine!” I have to relent. “Let go of me!”

He gives me a hard shove that sends me headfirst into the wall, and I go to work while rubbing my head.

I scrub the dishes, dry, and put them away. I sweep up all of the dirt in the three rooms to our small house and take the rugs outside to beat. The whole time under his watchful eye, so I don’t escape like I have so many times before.

He inspects everything I do. He tells me to keep scrubbing a dish even though it’s clean; he keeps making me sweep even though there’s no end to the dust you can pick up; he keeps making me beat and beat the rugs for an hour. He relishes these moments of control and sits with his feet up on the wall, drinking his wine, watching me.

At the end, when he can’t possibly find more for me to clean, I ask, “Can I go now?”

He searches around, not finding anything, but then slowly, and with a treacherous smile, takes off his mud-crusted boots and rubs the bottoms together, making a filthy mess on the immaculate floor. “Look at how dirty my boots are. Make them shine, and clean up that mess.”

I take them outside and see him now sitting in the window, ready to pounce in case I run. I sit on the door as a boy rides down the street on the shoulders of his father.

My mother comes home early, looking very tired, with her hair falling out of her braid like frazzled wings. She kisses me on the head weakly and goes inside.

“Why is Luis polishing your boots?”

“The boy asked me if he could polish them.”

“Everything is perfect, thank you.”

“All this cleaning’s made my back worse.” He grimaces as he rubs his back.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t need to do all this,” she says and rubs his back for him.

He makes me sick.

“I have some bad news,” my mother says.

“What news?”

“Lady de Strozzi is leaving with her household to her country estate next week for the whole summer.”

“Well, wouldn’t we go too?”

“She is only bringing those without families.” She nervously tucks her disheveled hair behind both of her pointed ears.

“Can’t we leave Luis with someone?”

“I have no family here, and his father’s family lives three days away.”

He breathes out a heavy, prolonged sigh.

“You will have to get a job, Hector.”

“You know I can’t work with my bad back.”

He threw his back out lifting baskets of fish months ago and still enjoys pretending to be sore whenever Mother is home but gets up with great speed and agility when catching me for a beating.

“The armada ships have come to harbor here, fleeing the storms. They’re restocking supplies and looking for volunteers.” Her voice lifts up optimistically at the end.

He clears his throat. “Are you telling me I should sign on?”

She gets nervous and begins picking lint from her muslin skirt. “I was only thinking you might want to ask what the pay would be?”

“I am broken, but if you want me to suffer, I will do anything for you.”

I hear my mother walk over to him, and I gather they’re embracing, and my lip involuntarily pulls up in one corner.

“No, I’ll speak to the lady of the house tomorrow and plead to have her bring us.”

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

That night, I go to bed only to wake up hearing the noises I’ve grown so used to coming from the bed my stepfather and mother share. I know all too well what is occurring right behind me. I try to go back to bed as fast as I can, but I can’t fall back asleep until his unashamed grunting ends.

As soon as the sun comes up, I run out of the house. I skip breakfast, even though my stomach is aching from hunger, just to avoid having Hector catch me. Once I’m out on the streets, I feel safe. I waste the day by making my usual rounds to all of my favorite places. I go to the house in the market where an old man always gives me an apple if I roll his cart from his shed and push it to his spot down the street.

Then I sit on the docks and eat every bit I can chew off the apple, only spitting out the seeds. I watch the ships come in and unload their goods and ship back out of port. I stay there for hours. The water is clear and a deep blue, especially against the rocky coast. The bay is large and sheltered, with our small, walled city on the peninsula out in the center. Today I see the ships my mother spoke about. It looks as if the whole horizon is filled with ships. I’ve never seen so many in my life.

There are many children running wild in the streets. I never have the courage to go up and talk to them, but I sit and watch them play from afar. When my stomach starts gnawing again, I have to distract myself by running up to the graveyard. The cemetery is right beside the stone cathedral up a small, gradual hill from the water. There’s a worn pathway up the center with the most beautiful statuaries on top of the wealthy people’s graves. One of my favorites is a beautiful angel with her wings spread over a child’s grave‌—‌Don Tomas, 1580-1587‌—‌and I always wish I had his parents. My other favorite is one with the Virgin Mary carved from stone. She has her head down and her hand covering her face, weeping.

I wish Papa’s stone was fancy like that. His is at the very top in the pauper’s graves, which are unmarked except for a small stone embedded in the ground with a number on it. Number seventy-seven. At least he had lucky numbers. I spend the time wiping away the dirt and moss that would creep over his stone, and gather any sort of free beauty I can find in the woods and fields near it. If there are no wild flowers to gather, I find shiny sticks or smooth rocks. I remember when he took me down to the water to skip stones I found for him. Every time I tried, my father laughed as mine sank after hitting the water, and I watched in awe as he threw his, and the stone seemed to skip off into the horizon like it had wings.

I bring him a nice flat and smooth stone, place it on his grave, and imagine him saying, “This is perfect; let’s watch it fly.”

He died before he could ever teach me how to skip.

When I see the sun starting to go down, I race off to the market again to bring the old man’s cart back in for another apple I start salivating for before I even reach for it from his spotted hand. Then I get nervous that it’s time to go back home and pray my mother doesn’t have to stay late for her Lady. I creep up to the window and try to see if my mother is cooking dinner, when I’m grabbed by my collar.

“What do we have here?” His breath makes my eyes water. “You ran away again without doing your chores,” he says with his voice going up and down in a singsong way.

This means my mother still isn’t home.

“You know what your punishment will be, and I don’t understand why you make me do this to you.”

He drags me back into the house into our bedroom. He closes the door and walks to his trunk to get the too familiar crop. I make a dash for the door, but I’m stopped by a kick to the side of my thigh, sending me crashing into the door. He’s on top of me quickly and hits every unexposed area, any area that can be concealed from my mother. After he’s finished, and I stop screaming and give in to crying, he sits back on his bed. I don’t attempt to get up but try to rub away the sting from my thighs and back, curled up on the floor.

He’s still holding his whip in his hand, scratching the two moles on the side of his jaw where hair won’t grow.

He stares at me with his black eyes. “It’s your fault your mother won’t have a job. They don’t want any misbehaving bastards at their country villa.”

I wonder if this is true and keep sniffling.

“You know you’d be doing us all a favor if you went out tomorrow and never came back.” He keeps laughing. “Your mother has practically said that to me, that she wished she didn’t have to worry about you or care for you anymore.”

I wish it wasn’t true.

“I’m going to keep beating you and beating you until you get tired of it and leave. Or I might get lucky one of these days and hit you hard enough that you never get back up.”

“I’m going to tell her this time.” I start getting up, and he stands over me.

“This time!” His voice rises up to a squeal. “You’ve done it before, and how’d that work out? She always believes me. You see she loves me more than you.”

I hate that he’s right.

“Just go, go right now. Don’t come back; we’ll all be better off.” He opens the door wide.

I want to get away from him and away from his words. I wish I could believe my mother would pick me over him, but I’m not sure. She’s taken his side in everything, and even when I showed her my bruises, he would make up some story of something terrible I did, and then she sends me to bed without dinner, with him laughing silently behind her back. I can’t trust her, and part of me feels he’s right, she does wish I’d leave. Leave her to start a new life with Hector.

I run, and when I turn around to close the front door, I see triumph in his cold eyes, and the last words I hear are, “Don’t come back.”

I don’t know where to go. These streets are dangerous at night, and my mother always makes me come in when the sun goes down. I keep running along the stone road cupping the harbor, but I’m running without any destination in mind. I keep searching my memory for any place I might go, and the only one I think I can go to.

Chapter 2

I knock on the door. It takes a long time, and by how slow he’s shuffling, I realize that is why it’s taking so long. He smiles when he sees me, but then concern creeps over his face.

“What brings you here so late, boy?”

“I have no place to go tonight. Can I stay with you?”

He eyes widen and then he runs his hand over his wiry beard. “You have no home?”

“No, sir.”

He glances back into his apartment as an old woman calls for him.

“It’s nothing. I’ll be right back!” he yells to her, rubbing a large mole by his eye worriedly.

He whispers now, “You can’t stay with me, but you can sleep in the shed. For one night!”

He points to the shed where his fruit cart is. “Go out to the shed, and I’ll come out to unlock it when I get a chance.”

I go to the shed, but it’s almost an hour before I see his hunched form shuffle out and darkness has already fallen.

“Boy?” he calls out into the darkness.

“Here, sir.”

His hand shakes as he pulls his long key from his coat pocket. It’s excruciating watching him fumble over and over again trying to get the key into the lock hole.

“Tricky little thing.” He finally gets it in, and it pops open. A little white terrier runs out happily around his master’s legs. I’m surprised he keeps his dog in the shed.

The old man pats the dog on the head. “Bella, good girl.” Then looks at me and says, “She keeps the rats away from my apples.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Now, boy, I have my whole cart filled with fruit. I’m trusting you to take only one apple for your supper and leave the rest, since it’s all I have to make my living.” He pulls a piece of bread out of his pocket and puts it in my hand. “This is all I can give you.” He points in the shed. “There’s a cart cover in there made of burlap you can sleep on.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Just one night.”

I bow my head to him and walk into the shed as he closes it behind me. I hear him fumble once again with the lock, and I realize I should have relieved myself before I went in. I’m locked in for the night. If he dies in his sleep, no one will know I’m here. As soon as I make a bed out of the scratchy burlap, I take the bread and stuff it into my mouth, barely chewing it before I hurry it down to my impatient stomach. Bella watches me eagerly with her golden eyes, and I feel so bad, I give her a small piece, even though my stomach moans in protest. I take the fattest apple I can find, and it disappears too fast. I lie back and look up at the mountain of red shining apples and can’t sleep with the terrible temptation of devouring the pile. Bella, happy to have someone in her shed, curls up in the crook between my shoulder and head and lays her head in the dip of my neck. We’re glad to have each other.