Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  Maybe it had been the pumpkin, or perhaps she’d finally been ready to focus on the present. About six months after their excursion into the fall-dappled countryside, Irene asked Amanda to move in with her. They spent several early-spring Saturdays plying the antique sales in the small towns around Boston. Amanda insisted that a Victorian house deserved a few authentic pieces to show it off. And she was willing to pay for these expensive adventures out of her own pocket.

  It was not a smoldering, sandalwood-tinged kind of longing. But as time went on, Irene felt anchored and secure, and in a different, perhaps more nostalgic way, deeply in love. They were both on the threshold of their forties, and she found on Amanda’s lightly wrinkled skin, in the warm pockets behind her ears, along her neck and in the folds of her arms, a scent of lilac that spoke of home. On Sundays, when they cooked and baked together in the kitchen, the fragrance of warm bread and roast and pie held them together in a soft embrace.

  But just as Irene was beginning to feel settled, another embrace, that of her family and her homeland, turned into a vise once again. Demonstrations against the Chilean dictatorship had begun the same month she had finally graduated from MIT, but it took several years for the crisis to become so large that the Boston newspapers, and even the local television stations, began reporting on it regularly. By the time she and Amanda had moved in together, there was talk of a plebiscite to decide whether or not Augusto Pinochet would remain in power.

  The phone rang one Saturday morning, just as Irene and Amanda were finishing breakfast. Amanda answered.

  “Oh, hi, Eugenia. Yes, she’s right here. I’ll put her on.” Irene took the phone from Amanda’s hand and sat back down at the kitchen table.

  “Hi, Chenyita,” she said. “Are you ready for Laura’s birthday lunch today?” It was shortly before Laura’s fourteenth birthday, and just a couple of weeks shy of the Chilean plebiscite. Eugenia had managed to change her fellowship into a temporary teaching position, renewable on a yearly basis because her courses were so popular and no one else could teach them.

  “Hi, Nenita,” Eugenia said. “I am, though that’s not what I’m calling about. You’ll never guess what just happened. They called me from Eyewitness news. They want to do an in-depth interview with me about Chile.”

  “Wow. Do you think it’s a good idea?”

  “I don’t know. Just last week, some of my worst nightmares came back.”

  “And?”

  “Well, if the nightmares are back anyway, maybe doing something useful, like helping people here understand some of the background … I don’t know …”

  “So when do they want to interview you?”

  “This afternoon, on their weekend program.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Exactly. So could I ask you and Amanda to pick up Laura and Marcie from the movie at the mall?”

  “Of course, sweetie. But isn’t this kind of short notice? Don’t you think that—?”

  “I mentioned that. But they’re right. It’s short notice, but that’s how breaking news is. I should know that, as a reporter, don’t you think?”

  “I’m not worried about you as a reporter, Chenyita.”

  “I know. But I think I have to do this.”

  So Irene and Amanda picked Laura and her friend Marcie up at the mall in the old blue Saab they’d recently bought. What no one had predicted was that, on the television sets prominently displayed in the windows of the electronics store they’d passed on their way out, Laura and Marcie had seen Eugenia being interviewed. And that was only the beginning.

  When elections were held in Chile in December of the following year, the opposition candidate won. Irene and Eugenia stayed up all night, watching the television coverage at Eugenia’s apartment. Amanda had stayed with them until midnight, then driven the Saab back to the house. When it became clear that the candidate of the democratic coalition was going to beat the right-wing candidate supported by Pinochet, they broke open the bottle of champagne. They hugged and wept for hours, still unable to believe that Chile’s seventeen-year dictatorship was really coming to an end.

  The following May, her sister received the phone call from that Truth Commission lawyer. The nightmares came back, the sleeplessness. The more her sister wrote in the notebook Ignacio Pérez had suggested, the worse things seem to get. Those early-morning phone calls, always at the moment when Irene was settling into her day, also turned her world upside down. But nothing had prepared her for the call she got the morning after Ignacio interviewed Eugenia. The minute she heard her sister’s voice, Irene knew she was crying.

  “Chenyita! Are you all right? What happened? Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not at the moment.” A short pause and a deep intake of breath as Eugenia composed herself. Then she continued, her voice less ragged. “It looks like the Commission wants to fly me and Laura back, sometime in the next few months. Laura’s not happy about it, and she made a bit of a scene with Ignacio last night. But depending on what happens, I might need a lot of help.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, Nenita … I’ve been wondering, you know? And it kept me up all night. It might be time to go back for good.”

  V

  Exile

  Even before the door closed on Ignacio Pérez’s elegant figure, Laura knew they were going back to Chile. She felt that same burning sensation deep in her chest she had felt years before when her mother had moved them to Boston, and that sense of resigning yourself to the inevitable that had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. What made it even worse was that her mother had no idea what she had done. This had always been the case, Laura knew. And she didn’t know what was worse: that her mother kept doing the same thing to her, or that her mother had no idea she was doing it. So she locked herself in her room, took out Paco the pink porcupine, lay down on her bed, and closed her eyes.

  Mexico City, 1977

  Laura’s first memory was of standing on the balcony of their apartment in Coyoacán, the edge of the wrought iron railing barely below eye level. She moved down into the corner, straining her hand between the bars to reach the bougainvillea’s lush purple blossoms that seemed slightly out of her reach. Ah, success. And all at once, the vague disappointment at how quickly the flower fell apart between her probing fingers, leaving only a small reddish stain along her palm; and then the whoosh of Inocencia, her sandals flapping against her brown heels, tongue clacking disapprovingly as she swooped Laura up in her arms.

  “Ay, niñita! What if you fell and your mama came back from the newspaper and found you in broken pieces on the sidewalk! Ay, Dios, I can’t get anything done around here when you go off like this.”

  When Laura behaved and played quietly with her toys, Inocencia would bustle around between the kitchen and the backstairs laundry, cooking fragrant soups and breads, beating clothes against the large stone that served as a washboard before rinsing and hanging them on the line. There, pinned between two wooden clothespins that stood up like horns, the blouses and skirts and slacks would swing gently in rhythm with Mexico City’s light breezes. Sometimes, when she ironed in the early afternoon sun, Inocencia would sing songs in her native language, and the round, soft tones of her voice enveloped Laura like a warm blanket.

  On days when Mama stayed home, Laura would hear the clack-clack of her typewriter in the small room at the back of their second-floor apartment. Rather than live in that room, in a more traditional arrangement, Inocencia insisted that she preferred to make the one-hour commute daily in each direction to the southern edge of the city, because on the land her brother-in-law had inherited from his family, she could keep chickens and grow herbs in a small plot they gave her by the side of the house. It worked out well for all of them, because it gave Mama a study and Inocencia could live with her family. Besides, the dishes made with the eggs and the fragrant rosemary and basil Inocencia brought from home were delicious. And since Mama never set foot in the kitchen except to wa
rm up the soup Inocencia left for them to eat on her day off, Laura was especially happy that Inocencia’s cooking was so tasty.

  When Mama worked at home, Laura was not allowed to interrupt her, whether she heard the typewriter clacking or not. Only when Inocencia announced that lunch was ready would the door to the study open, releasing the sour smell of cigarettes. Laura would run to the table, mouth watering with the expectation of a delicious chicken or squash soup and some special time with her mother. If Mama was in a good mood, she could sometimes lose track of the time and they would sit and laugh for hours. But when Mama was sad, all conversation stopped. Then Laura felt like a cloud of smog came down and draped the room in shades of grey and brown. There was nothing she could do or say that would make Mama feel better, so she would just sit and look at her mama’s face: her eyes as bright as the small turquoise earrings Inocencia wore; the short curly hair that spread out like question marks from her head; and most of all her light skin, with slight wrinkles around the eyes. Sometimes Laura would tiptoe to her mama’s side and reach out to touch her hair, each strand so light between her fingers, so different from the thick, black pieces she felt growing from her own head.

  As Laura grew older, she began to stand in front of the mirror and compare her face, thick dark eyebrows and eyelashes, olive skin, large round dark eyes, and straight, thick, raven hair, with her mother’s light looks. One day, during the early part of third grade, her friend Cecilia was standing near the gate of the playground when her mama dropped her off.

  “Who was that?” Cecilia asked minutes later, while they were playing on the swings.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who was that who just left you off?”

  “My mama.”

  “She doesn’t look like your mama.”

  “How come?”

  “Well, she’s so light, a guerita, not like you. Is your papa dark?”

  Laura realized that, even if she knew a lot about her papa—that he had died in Chile before she was born, that he was from the south of the country, that he had been a hero fighting for the poor—she really had no idea what he looked like.

  “Was my papa dark, like me?” she asked later that day at home.

  “What?”

  “Did my papa look like me? Because I don’t look like you, Mama.”

  That expression came over Mama’s face, the one she got when she would think about Papa, a combination of happy and sad that lit up her face and brought a smile to her lips, yet also filled her eyes with tears. For a few minutes she said nothing.

  “Well, hijita,” she finally said, “he didn’t have your coloring. But sometimes these things skip a generation, you know.”

  “What was he like, Mamita? Was he tall? Did he laugh a lot? Do you have a photograph? Did he sometimes get very sad, like you?”

  Mama took Laura’s hand and led her over to the couch in the living room. They sat down, and Mama put her arm around Laura’s shoulders and hugged her close.

  “Laurita,” she whispered, her voice cracking, “your papa was a wonderful man. He was so kind to everyone, and loved to laugh. He would have been such a good father if he had lived to see you. And you know, I’ve often thought about not having a photograph. It seems like such a silly thing now, but we were always so busy. And we didn’t have a camera. So all I have now is the picture of him in my heart.”

  Then her mother softly disengaged herself and, standing up from the sofa, walked slowly to her study and locked the door behind her. She didn’t come out again that afternoon.

  One night, when Laura was ten years old, she got up to go to the bathroom. As she was heading back to bed, she heard moans coming from her mother’s room. Was she sick, or in pain? She rushed over to the bed. Mama was dreaming. She took her hand.

  “Mamita, Mamita, wake up. You’re having a bad dream. It’s okay, it’s not real.” This is what her mother always said to her when she had a bad dream.

  Her mama woke up shivering. Laura hurried to the hall closet and, standing on tiptoe, managed to pull an extra blanket off the top shelf. She placed it on her mother’s quaking shoulders, then brought her a glass of water. In a few minutes her mother began to calm down.

  “It must have been awful,” Laura said.

  “It wasn’t really scary,” her mother answered. “It’s just that, sometimes, I dream about your papa and then, in the dream, I know he’s gone and that makes me very sad.”

  “What was in the dream?”

  “We were sitting at a café in downtown Santiago, where we often went, having dinner. We were laughing.”

  “What was he eating?”

  “His favorite. Steak-and-avocado sandwiches. And we were drinking wine, and after we finished the food he ordered an espresso and lit up one of his black tobacco cigarettes.”

  “Did he smoke a lot?”

  “In those days everybody smoked. But his brand of black tobacco, it was special. Not expensive, just a distinct smell. It stuck to all his clothes. When I opened the closet in our apartment, the smell was everywhere. And it was in his hair and beard, too.”

  “What else did my papa smell like?”

  “He smelled of oranges. I remember noticing that the first time we talked. Later I learned that his Grandma Myriam had orange trees in her patio in Temuco, and he used to visit her every day. I used to imagine that, after years and years of daily visits, the smell had stuck to him permanently. But it was probably just because he liked to eat oranges. He peeled at least one a day, and the smell just stayed on his hands.”

  Until that night, no matter how often Laura asked her mother questions and no matter what the question was, she had not been able to get a direct answer or a clear picture of her father. Laura had begun to think of her father as a luminous yet foggy presence, almost as if she were seeing him through a window that had steamed up from the outside. It did no good to try to wipe the glass. But that night, talking to her mother right after she woke up from a dream, cuddled up against her side as they both fell back asleep on the bed, her mama’s sweet tobacco scent in her nostrils, she learned more about her papa than she had ever known before. After that, Laura learned to sleep with her door open. There were nights when she lay awake for hours, hoping to hear her mother’s voice. Her sleeplessness was rewarded often enough that she slowly filled in the details of her father’s form. She grew to love the middle of the night.

  When the horrible earthquake came, just two days after her eleventh birthday, Laura was still asleep. She’d had a bad night, coughing and wheezing; so her mother had decided to keep her home from school. By the time she awoke, she was under the bed. The drills from school, about always getting under something, seemed to have worked even in her dreams. The only thing was that the bed was on the opposite side of the room.

  Her bedroom had a crack so large in one of the walls that you could see through to the street. It was three days before Inocencia came back. Although her brother-in-law’s house had collapsed, everyone had gotten out safely.

  Laura’s mother was badly shaken. It didn’t help that there was such a strong aftershock barely two days later. Mama began getting into bed with a pair of slip-on shoes right next to the night table, just in case another earthquake came. When the crack in the wall of Laura’s bedroom made it unsafe to sleep there, she moved into Mama’s room, and Laura could tell she was glad for the company. They shared Paco, the pink velvet porcupine that had slept with Laura since she was three years old.

  Because Laura’s school had been destroyed, she had nowhere to go after the quake. She accompanied her mother when, like other journalists, she roamed the city with a notebook, taking down people’s stories. But there was something special about her mama, the way she interviewed people, especially women. Laura didn’t quite understand how it happened, but at first a woman would be talking in that singsong voice, the one you heard on all the reports on television once the broadcasts had been restored. I have told this story a hundred times already, the voice seemed
to say, and it has always been exactly the same. And then, all of a sudden, her mama would make eye contact, or she would ask a question or put her hand on the other woman’s arm just so. Laura wasn’t exactly sure how, but the woman’s voice would change. Looking straight into her mother’s turquoise eyes, the woman would talk from a deeper place, crackling at first like the stones of a falling building. Then her story would take flight into the smog-filled air.

  No matter how many wonderful stories her mother gathered and then published in her newspaper, Laura could tell that the earthquake had broken something inside her. Mama began to lose weight, and big pools of soot gathered under her eyes. Finally, one morning when they had decided not to go out, Laura heard her mother on the phone from her room. She was talking to her sister Irene. She was using her sister’s nickname.

  “Ay, Nenita, I can’t take it anymore. Every night I’m sure we’re going to have another quake. I don’t know why, somehow it’s like the bottom of the boat turned to glass and all I can see is the dangerous ocean underneath. I need to get out of here, preferably somewhere with no history of quakes, I … okay. Call me if you have any news. It’s just that … yeah, I really don’t understand it, but it just feels like it was the last straw. Yes. Thanks, mi amor. I love you too.”

  Laura knew then that it was only a matter of time before they left their apartment in Coyoacán, with Inocencia’s songs and flapping sandals, the sun coming in through the windows in the afternoon, and the clothes waving merrily under their clothespin horns. She could tell that the earthquake had torn up more than the big buildings downtown and the walls of their apartment and her school. Even the bougainvillea had begun to droop, no matter how much water she took down to it. For the first time in her life, Laura understood that you couldn’t be sure of anything, not the ground under your feet, or even your own mother.