Within a few days I was quite at home in my new life. Some of my cousins
had come to stay with us on the plantation. They were older than me, two boys
and a girl. Now I had playmates other than the little black boys. My two boy
cousins, brave and bold, knew how to swim, to ride a horse bareback, ate
everything put in front of them and behaved as if they were indestructible. They
took me with them to the pool at mid-day when the water was warm; something that
was strictly forbidden. Afterwards we would uncover our heads, wiping our hair,
letting the sun warm our heads so that nobody could tell where we had been.
"You've turned black," Aunt Maria told me. "You were so
pale when you arrived and now you hardly look white at all. It won't do. Your
cousins may be used to it, but you are not. From dawn till dusk, barefoot,
running wild like a little animal. Your grandfather spoke to me about it
yesterday. You're a good little boy, so don't run around all over the place
after those rascals. There's fever about. Fausto's son, over in Pilar, has been
in bed for over a month now. And next week I'm going to begin to teach you to
read and write."
But my cousins never stopped, and in the morning I went with them and
the black boys to wash the horses, and there we would spend hours in the water.
And they would throw stones into the pond and then dive in picking them
up from the bottom. They splashed and kicked and fought each other in the
water, and there was always someone who went away crying, carrying their
complaints with them back home. We would spend all day playing these wild and
fearful games.
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