1. Washington Heights (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 2. Dominican Americans—Fiction. 3. Immigrants—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.R89L47 2005

813’.6—dc22 2004065329

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3513-3
ISBN-10: 1-4165-3513-6

The author and the publisher gratefully acknowledge permission from the following source: From “Guantanamera”; musical adaptation by Pete Seeger and Julian Orbon. Lyric adaptation by Julian Orbon, based on a poem by José Martí. Lyric editor: Hector Angulo. Original music and lyrics by José Fernandez Diaz. Copyright © 1963 (renewed) by Fall River Music, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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For the men, women, and children who died in the struggle against imperialism during the U.S. occupation in Dominican Republic in the early 1900s and in 1965.

En la lucha siempre, pa’lante.

When it’s truly alive, memory doesn’t contemplate history, it invites us to make it. More than in museums, where its poor old soul gets bored, memory is the air we breathe, and from the air, it breathes us.

—EDUARDO GALEANO, UPSIDE DOWN

Author’s Note

The title of this book, Let It Rain Coffee, was inspired by the song “Ojalá que llueva café,” by Juan Luis Guerra.

Los Llanos

1991

Don Chan Lee Colón de Juan Dolio ignored the stench that wafted through the valleys of Los Llanos. From the outside of his humble wooden house nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The passion fruit and mango trees were lush, shaking their leaves with the mildest of sea breezes, gossiping stories to the birds about Don Chan’s strange old-man ways. The pigeons lifted their beaks, concerned that Doña Caridad hadn’t left rice for them to feast on. It had been three days. No rice. No Doña Caridad. Only the strange smell from the small house where the Colón family had lived for three generations.

The house sat in an abandoned landscape. Its faded rose-colored paint peeled off. The train stocked with cane stalks woke the lazy goats in the yard where they lay, as if to guard the aging couple who refused to leave Los Llanos. The hungry pigs roaming his land turned their noses away. Many from the valley had taken off to live in the developing cities in search of jobs, but Don Chan and Doña Caridad stayed behind.

—I can’t close my eyes without the city coming back and spitting on me, he said to the younger folk who accused him of being afraid of change.

Miraluz Altagracia Natera asked the driver to park far enough away from the house so as to not jolt Don Chan. There was a stillness in Los Llanos that crept under her skin. The young man with a cleft lip who assisted Don Chan and tended to the land rich with mangoes, plátanos, cacao, and lechosas had called Miraluz weeks before.

—I don’t think it’s right for the old lady to be so far away from a doctor, the caretaker had said. —By the time anyone gets help, it’ll be too late to save her. I don’t mean to disrespect, but nothing anyone says to the old man sinks into that hard head of his.