House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferré Read Free Book Online

of his initiation as an Elk, Pavel inscribed his profession in the members’ book as “architect.” Many of the club’s members commissioned him to design their private homes, but these were usually modest buildings, because the Elks were puritanical and didn’t believe in extravagance. Through the Elks, however, Pavel got to know the criollo landowners, who were all members of the Association of Sugar Producers. These were the people he had seen getting off the passenger ships at Jacksonville, with silver fox draped over their shoulders and expensive Stetson hats on their heads: the Calimanos, the Behn-Luchettis, the Georgettis, the Shucks—the sugar barons of the island. Soon many of them wanted him to design them ultramodern mansions. Pavel didn’t have to worry about a budget at all; he could spend whatever he wanted.
    Buenaventura called on Pavel several times and finally got him to have lunch with Rebecca and him at their house. Before the meal was served, Buenaventura took the architect around and showed him the site. It was truly paradisiacal. By that time most of the wild vegetation surrounding Alamares Lagoon had been cleared away, except for the mangrove swamp, and several beautiful homes had been built near Buenaventura’s bungalow. The lagoon was clear and peaceful, and because of the buildings that had gone up around it, at night it shone like a perfect aquamarine set in a necklace of diamonds.
    Buenaventura showed Pavel the gentle slope where he wanted to build his new house, with “a magnificent terrace from where he could watch his ships go in and out of the harbor.” “This place we’re living in now can’t properly be called a home,” he said to Pavel. “It’s only a temporary residence. I want you to build a mansion more suited to our social standing. I’ll pay whatever you ask.” But Pavel refused.
    “It has nothing to do with fees,” Pavel said. “I simply have too much work and can barely keep up with the commitments I have already.” He knew Buenaventura would have paid him a good sum, and the site was certainly beautiful. What bothered him was Buenaventura himself—his large peasant’s hands and the unruly tufts of hair that grew out of his ears, which he never let the barber clip for him, though Rebecca begged him to. Above all, he resented Buenaventura’s ignorance, his coarse, country ways. During his walk through the site, his host emphasized that he wanted the house to be impressive, but that it should be comfortable. “I want to live in a home, not a controversial work of art,” he said. Pavel suspected the real reason Buenaventura wanted him to design the house was that he liked his golden-mosaic decorations—which gave off an affluent glitter under the noonday sun—and not because of his avant-garde architectural lines.
    It was Rebecca who made him change his mind. When Buenaventura excused himself after lunch and went back to his office, Rebecca and Pavel were left by themselves, and she invited him to go for a walk along the lagoon’s edge. Rebecca was twenty-four and her beauty was in full flower. Pavel saw that she had a keen sensibility and lived for art. She wrote poetry in secret, she said, and brought out a folder of poems from the house. It had an elaborate binding with a water lily carved on the front and silver clasps on the sides. Rebecca was reading one of her poems to Pavel when a breeze from the lagoon blew away several pages. Instead of running after them, she did an elegant little dance, managing to capture them in midair. Pavel laughed as he watched her admiringly.
    “I’ve always wanted to be a dancer and a poet,” she said to him. “When I was a child, my parents took me to Europe. We went to the great opera houses and saw the best dancers: Anna Pavlova in London, Nijinsky in Paris. But my favorite was Isadora Duncan. From the moment I saw Isadora dance, she became my ideal. In Puerto Rico, artistic currents arrive years later than in the