El Lector Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 - The Paradise Tree

  CHAPTER 2 - Goat de La Mancha

  CHAPTER 3 - La Séptima

  CHAPTER 4 - Sunday Dinner

  CHAPTER 5 - One-Way Bread

  CHAPTER 6 - Sitting at the Ritz

  CHAPTER 7 - The Silvertone 1100

  CHAPTER 8 - Payday

  CHAPTER 9 - The Babe is Caught Looking

  CHAPTER 10 - La Resistencia Revisited

  CHAPTER 11 - Graduation Day

  CHAPTER 12 - Despalilladoras

  CHAPTER 13 - The First Man

  CHAPTER 14 - Chinches

  CHAPTER 15 - The Bolita Boys

  CHAPTER 16 - The Heat Wave

  CHAPTER 17 - The Pop Shooter

  CHAPTER 18 - Shopping Spree

  CHAPTER 19 - The Halloween Ball

  CHAPTER 20 - The Labor Temple

  CHAPTER 21 - Arounds for Arrest

  CHAPTER 22 - Like a Thief in the Night

  CHAPTER 23 - The Lockout

  CHAPTER 24 - The Bread Nail

  CHAPTER 25 - A Christmas Memory

  CHAPTER 26 - Stone Soup

  CHAPTER 27 - WTAM

  CHAPTER 28 - The Audition

  CHAPTER 29 - Hidalgo’s Iesture

  CHAPTER 30 - El Lector of the Air

  CHAPTER 31 - El Paraíso Revisited

  AFTERWORD

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ALSO BY WILLIAM DURBIN

  Copyright Page

  To the citizens of Ybor City,

  who believed in the power of stories

  to enlighten and transform

  Ybor City, Florida

  March 1931

  CHAPTER 1

  The Paradise Tree

  The paradise tree above Bella Lorente’s head was as wide as it was tall, spreading its green canopy over the roof of the El Paraíso cigar factory. Bella sat on the lawn below the open windows of the second-floor workroom and listened as her grandfather read to the workers who were rolling cigars. It was Saturday, and the March sun was warm. Grandfather’s resonant voice carried out over the wind-rippled grass.

  Behind the factory a dozen brightly colored kites flew over an open field. Bella heard her younger brother Pedro and his friends laughing as they unreeled their strings and steered their homemade kites higher. The larger kites, made out of red, green, and blue tissue paper, hung in perfect balance in the magical blue sky, their white tails swishing from side to side. The smaller kites, like Pedro’s, made from plain brown paper, dipped and veered as they rode the gusty wind.

  Bella turned her attention to Grandfather’s reading. As El Paraíso’s lector, Roberto García sat on an elevated platform in the main workroom for four hours each day and entertained two hundred cigar rollers by reading news, literature, and politics. One of Ybor City’s most respected lectores, Grandfather always wore a white suit coat, a white shirt with gold cuff links, a silk tie, and dark pants.

  Grandfather’s performances were so popular that women from the neighborhood, many with babies in their arms, walked to the factory at midday and spread their blankets on the lawn to listen. Today, Bella and two dozen women sat quietly, their faces marked by leaf shadows and their eyes intent on the story of Don Quixote de La Mancha.

  “What a gift Señor García has,” a young mother whispered to Bella. “It’s not so much what he says as how he says it. So many lectores use microphones these days, but feel the fuerza de grito—the strength of his voice! Every reading is like music.”

  Bella smiled. She’d heard Grandfather read the story of Quixote’s quest before, but she never tired of the funny, sad tale. Grandfather was reading the famous passage where Quixote charges a windmill. Mistaking the blades for the arms of a giant, the nearsighted knight lowers his lance and spurs his horse forward. Grandfather’s voice mirrored the pounding of the hooves, the creaking of the windmill arms; and Bella heard the cigar workers chuckle as the knight toppled from his saddle.

  When Grandfather closed his book there was a moment of silence. Then one worker slapped his chaveta, his rounded cigar knife, on the wooden workbench. Soon two hundred blades were clapping down in appreciation and filling the factory hall with a dull thunder.

  Bella left the picnic basket she’d prepared for Grandfather under the tree and hurried upstairs to the workroom. Grandfather stood and bowed to the cigar makers. A shock of silver hair fell onto his forehead, and the ends of his salt-and-pepper mustache turned up in the hint of a smile. When the noise of the chavetas faded and the workers pushed back their chairs for the lunch break, Grandfather put on his Panama hat and stepped down from his oak lectern.

  “Good afternoon, Bella.” Grandfather beamed. “Welcome to paradise.”

  “Calling this factory El Paraíso doesn’t make it paradise.” Bella wrinkled her nose at the clouds of blue cigar smoke that filled the hall.

  “So the smell of damp tobacco and cigars is not your idea of heaven?” Grandfather said.

  A cigar maker tipped his hat to Grandfather as he walked past. “A fine reading, Señor García,” he said. The rollers were skilled craftsmen who regarded Grandfather as a fellow artist.

  “Gracias.” Grandfather nodded to the man.

  Bella waved the smoke from her face. “I’m glad you don’t smoke.” Most workers smoked at their benches and took three cigars home each evening, but Grandfather never used tobacco.

  “I need to protect my voice. But don’t forget that cigar money fills your soup pot at home.”

  “Mama’s job is doing laundry.”

  “And where do you suppose her customers dirty their clothes?” Grandfather motioned toward the rows of benches, their tops stained dark from tobacco leaves. Then he offered his arm to Bella. “Shall we dine on the lawn today, señorita?”

  As they stepped outside, Grandfather looked up at the clusters of tiny yellow blossoms on the paradise tree. “Now will you admit that we have entered paradise?”

  “The flowers are beautiful,” Bella said, admiring the delicate petals that swayed in the breeze and gave off a sweet perfume. Bella had played under the paradise tree from the time she was a little girl. Its broad crown of waxy, pink-veined leaves shaded the lawn and the factory windows in deep green.

  Bella spread out a blanket while Grandfather held the picnic basket. “What treats do we have today?” He lifted a corner of the white cloth.

  “Cold soup,” Bella said, “and fresh bread from Ferlita’s.”

  “You made gazpacho Andaluz!” Grandfather smiled as he sat down. “A feast fit for the gods.”

  Bella didn’t care for the Spanish tomato soup, but it was Grandfather’s favorite lunch. Though Bella was only thirteen, she’d been helping Mama with the housework and doing her part in caring for the four younger children since she was eleven. That was the year her papa, Domingo, had been killed on a tobacco-buying trip in Cuba. He and Grandfather had planned to start a cigar factory called García & Lorente. Papa had their life savings with him on the day he was robbed and murdered.

  Grandfather broke off a piece of bread and sniffed the crust. Then he tasted the soup. “¡Delicioso!” He touched his napkin to his lips. “This soup would make Pijuan jealous.”

  Bella smiled. Pijuan was the head chef at the Columbia, the finest restaurant in Ybor. Since Grandfather didn’t cook, he often ate there.

  “What’s in the newspapers today?” she asked. Grandfather subscribed to La Gaceta and La Traduccion, as well as two English papers, which he translated into Spanish and read to the workers.

  “The usual trouble. Riots in Madrid. Martial law declared in Lima. But local matters worry me most.”

  “You mean the Tobacco Worke
rs International Union vote?”

  “Yes,” Grandfather said. “If the TWIU wins, the Anglo business owners are threatening to form a citizens’ committee. That would give a free hand to the vigilantes who want to crush the cigar makers’ union. And you know, the Ku Klux Klan will keep attacking the union and the Negroes.”

  “Could it get as bad as last year?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  Bella shuddered. Last year Anglo businessmen had backed a Klan mob that kidnapped a poor immigrant named John Hodaz from the police. After lynching him, they’d shot his body to pieces.

  “Enough dark talk.” Grandfather touched Bella’s hand. “Let’s enjoy this fine meal.” He tore off another piece of bread and dipped it into his soup. “I was just thinking how you look more like your grandmother every day.”

  “Oh, Grandfather.”

  “It’s true. I’ll never forget the day an artist asked my Belicia to sit for the portrait they still use on El Paraíso’s most famous label, the Paraíso Perfecto. The painter saw us in a sidewalk café. He walked up to Belicia and bowed, saying, ‘In all of my travels I have not witnessed such beauty.’ ”

  “Was she shy?” Bella thought of the painting in Grandfather’s parlor that showed Bella’s namesake, Belicia García, in a sleeveless white gown. Her dark brown eyes sparkled, and she wore a single red rose in her shiny black hair. Bella had admired the portrait from the time she was little and tried to imagine what her grandmother had been like.

  “She was modest,” Grandfather said, “and tall and graceful like you.”

  “But my hair and my eyes are so plain compared to hers.” Bella touched the tight braids that her mother had plaited.

  “I tell you, when the light shines a certain way—” Grandfather stopped at a shout from the field. “Could that be Pedro?”

  “I’d better check.” Bella set down her napkin and jogged past the loading dock to the field. One little boy was crying and pointing at Pedro.

  Bella walked up. “What happened now?”

  “That boy lost his kite, and he’s blaming me.” Pedro curled his lower lip in a pout.

  “You cut the string.” The boy’s voice trembled.

  “It’s not my fault,” Pedro mumbled. He held his kite in one hand and a stick wound with string in the other.

  Bella saw a glint of metal on his kite tail. She bent down and lifted it. On a matchstick spliced between the last two knots, Pedro had taped a pair of razor blades that would cut any kite string they crossed. “How many times has Mama warned you about kite fighting?” Bella asked. “Someone could get hurt with those blades whipping through the air.”

  “All the fellows are doing it.” Pedro kept his voice low and looked out of the corner of his eye to see if his friends were watching.

  “That doesn’t make it right,” she said. “You’re eleven years old! You know better.” Pedro stared at the ground and wiped a dirty fist across his wet cheek.

  “So how can we make things right, Pedro?”

  “What do you mean?” He peered up at her. Pedro was short for his age and so skinny that his pants looked two sizes too big.

  “Shouldn’t we do something about this boy losing his kite?” If only Papa were alive to help discipline Pedro. As difficult as Papa’s death had been for the rest of the family, the loss had been even harder on Pedro.

  Pedro glanced at the boy. Finally he said, “I suppose I could give him my kite.”

  “That would be the honorable thing to do.” Grandfather’s deep voice startled them. They hadn’t heard him approach. “And honor is the only currency of value in this life.”

  Bella smiled. That was one of Grandfather’s favorite expressions.

  “I’d better take these off first,” Pedro said, untying the razor blades from the tail and handing the kite to the boy.

  “A wise decision,” Grandfather said.

  “Try using your head next time,” Bella said, wrapping the razor blades in her handkerchief and slipping them into her skirt pocket.

  “Thank you for the fine meal, Bella.” Grandfather handed her the basket and folded blanket. “Now, back to my reading.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Goat de La Mancha

  By the time Bella and Pedro walked past the factory, Juan Fernandez, the presidente de la lectura, was ringing a bell in the second-story hall to quiet the workers so Grandfather could begin. Juan headed a workers’ committee that hired the lector. The same committee helped select the political essays and union newsletters that Grandfather read, but the cigar rollers voted on the novels. Though most of the workers couldn’t read, they believed in the power of knowledge and paid Grandfather’s salary out of their own pockets.

  Many of Ybor City’s lectores read novels right after lunch, but Grandfather preferred to use the lazy siesta hour for reading labor news. That left the factory lawn empty of listeners until Grandfather’s final session of the day, when he performed poetry, short stories, and excerpts from plays and operas.

  Bella paused at the edge of the sidewalk. “Listen to how far his voice carries,” she told Pedro. She had always dreamed of being el lector, just like Grandfather. When she was little she’d stood in her parlor and pretended she was at a tall lectern as she read storybooks and poems to her family. When she finished, Papa called, “Viva, Bella!” and clapped his hands on the table.

  Today Grandfather’s pure Castilian Spanish was as clear as if he was standing right beside them: “Before I read a Bakunin essay, which explains how the wealthy use property to enslave the working man, I have news about our comrades in the coal-fields of Harlan, Kentucky. The miners who were recently fired for joining the union have been evicted from their homes. At this very hour many women and children lack basic necessities. On Friday we’ll be taking up a collection for them.”

  “Who cares about coal miners?” Pedro asked. “There’s still a good wind.” He looked over the roof at the kite tails waggling in the sky. “If you want to listen, I can go back and play.”

  “No,” Bella said, “Mama needs you this afternoon.” Washing clothes was the only work Mama could manage and still keep an eye on her children. Grandfather often tried to hire help for Mama or give her money, but she always said, “Merced recibida, libertad vendida” —who receives a gift, sells his liberty. Mama made an exception in allowing Grandfather to pay their rent.

  As Bella and Pedro walked down Twentieth Street toward home, Bella said, “Smell the ocean.” Hillsborough Bay lay several miles south of Ybor City, but an ocean breeze often carried the scents of sea salt and mudflats and mangroves into town.

  Just then a panpipe trilled, followed by a singsong voice: “Con dinero, o sin dinero.”

  “The pirulí man!” Pedro said.

  A man in a butcher’s apron and straw hat came around the corner carrying a banana stalk stuck full of cone-shaped lollipops. His call of “With money or without money” meant that he would take either a penny or a coupon as payment.

  “Could we—” Pedro began.

  “After what happened with your kite?”

  Pedro trudged beside Bella. Chatter in Spanish and Italian came from the shops, and a wagon heaped with sacks of coffee beans rattled down the cobbled street.

  Pedro came back to life when they turned onto Ninth Avenue and caught the scent of fresh bread from Ferlita’s Bakery. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll fix you something,” Bella said. It was hard not to think of food all the time, living just down the street from Ferlita’s giant brick-domed ovens, which stayed on twenty-four hours a day.

  Their neighborhood of one-story casitas was full of Spanish, Cuban, and Italian families who worked in the cigar factories. Half a block from home, Bella and Pedro heard, “Baa huh huh!”

  “How does she know we’re coming?” Pedro asked.

  “I’ve tried tiptoeing up the street, but she always hears me,” Bella said as they walked around the back of their white casita.

  Their little goat, Rocinante,
was tethered to a broad oak in the backyard. She trotted toward them, her stubby tail sticking up and head bobbing. “Such a pretty girl,” Bella said as the goat lifted her chin to have her neck scratched. Rocinante was so vain that she pranced in a half circle when anyone told her she was pretty. She had little nubs of ears and soft black fur that shone in the afternoon sun, and she loved it when Bella scratched her tufted beard and her toes.

  Lots of people in Ybor City kept animals. Bella’s neighbors raised chickens, rabbits, and pigeons.

  Mama stepped out onto the back porch. “I’m glad you’re home. The baby’s been—” She eyed Pedro. “Where’s your kite?”

  “Ahh—” Pedro faltered. “I—”

  “Have you been getting into mischief again?” Mama said. “I swear I’ll hang myself from the clothesline if you shame this family one more time.”

  “Kites have a way of flying away, don’t they?” Bella said, wondering why she bothered to stick up for Pedro when he’d been so mean.

  He nodded eagerly.

  “And all morning you begged me to cut up that sheet for your kite tail.” Mama pushed her kerchief back with her fingers. Her eyes looked tired. She was wearing a long black dress and an apron. Though Papa had died two years ago, she still dressed in mourning clothes.

  Bella carried the picnic basket through the door.

  “Would you watch Julio?” Mama asked. “Pedro can help me carry in the laundry so we can start ironing.”

  “May I slice some bread for Pedro first?” Bella poured water into the blue porcelain basin beside the sink and washed her hands.

  Pedro opened the icebox and poured himself a glass of milk. “Wash your hands, too,” Bella said.

  Pedro sat at the table and ate while Bella bounced Julio on her knee. Julio once had bad stomachaches, and the doctor advised feeding him goat’s milk. The milk helped, so Grandfather bought Rocinante.

  “If a man must own a goat,” Grandfather said when he led her into their yard, “it should be a proper Spanish breed.”

  “Why doesn’t it have ears?” Pedro had asked.

  “It’s a La Mancha—no ordinary goat, mind you, but one that’s descended from the ancient herds of Cordova, Spain.”