Beyond the Ties of Blood

by Florencia Mallon

  Even over the sound of Neil Young in her earphones, Laura heard her mother’s knock. She simply couldn’t let her in. What would she tell her? That Grandma Isabel was a bitch? Even though it was true, and her mother kind of knew it, she just couldn’t say it to her. So what could she do? She turned up the volume and listened to Neil sing “Crime in the City.” She repeated it several times and thought back to what had happened at the table. After she’d told Grandma that something had come up and Mama had gone out to meet Ignacio, they’d decided to have some tea. At first she’d been really nice, offering her some of the cake from the day before. When she’d said yes, Grandma had tinkled that little bell. Laura couldn’t get used to Grandma calling Rosa, or anyone, with a bell.

  After Rosa went back into the kitchen, Grandma served them both pieces of cake. Laura took a bite of the luscious combination of crisp meringue and nutty lúcuma paste. Then Grandma started in on how happy she was that her daughter and granddaughter were back with her. At some point, she started harping on Laura’s looks again. And all of a sudden she just laughed and said, you know, Laurita? If I hadn’t driven to the airport with you and your mother, you a month old and your mama’s breasts full of milk, I’d swear you were Rosa’s daughter.

  Laura stopped her Walkman and took out the Neil Young tape. She rummaged through her collection of tapes stored in the bottom drawer of the bureau and took out Silvio Rodríguez. Placing the new tape in her player, she cued up “I Give you a Song,” the one she’d first heard at the Inti concert. “I give you a song when I open a door / And you appear from the shadows,” Silvio began, accompanied only by his guitar. Laura thought back to Mexico City, to the nights when her mother’s nightmares had first opened the door and her father had stepped out of the shadows. “I give you a song at daybreak / when I most need your light,” Silvio continued. Would her father’s memory ever give her light? “i give you a song when you appear / The mystery of love.” Mystery, indeed. She wondered how Grandma’s comment would have made Rosa feel. The worst part of it was that, in a way, she really did look more like Rosa. Toward the end of the chorus, Silvio added: “And if you don’t appear, it doesn’t matter.” But it did.

  “There they are,” Ignacio whispered as he and Eugenia turned the corner and headed toward the two-story stone building that housed the offices of the Truth Commission. Standing in front of the beveled glass doors at the top of a short staircase, framed against the smog-stained façade, Manuel’s parents looked like tiny black bears. Their overcoats and broad-brimmed hats seem to melt into each other as in a watercolor, the edges bleeding into the surrounding background to create a furry splotch of ink.

  They looked even smaller as Eugenia and Ignacio walked up the stairs to greet them. Eugenia had to bend just a little to accept the hug that doña Sara, ignoring the younger woman’s outstretched hand, insisted on giving her. The smell of oranges was like a curtain going up on the past, and Eugenia could taste her own tears as she stepped back and found Manuel’s intense stare looking back at her from this tiny woman’s face.

  “Doña Sara, don Samuel, this is Eugenia Aldunate.” Ignacio was the only one who seemed able to speak, and his words sounded impossibly redundant. As they stood there, the drizzle turned into a steady rain. “There’s still about an hour before our appointment,” Ignacio continued, “and I see that none of us thought to bring an umbrella. There’s a coffeehouse around the corner. Why don’t we go warm up and get to know each other a bit?”

  They walked down the stairs, Sara clutching Eugenia’s hand. By the time they reached the coffeehouse, they were soaked, and they draped their wet coats on extra chairs. The smell of wet wool mixed with the aromas of baking bread and roasted espresso beans. Ignacio ordered espresso with milk and fresh rolls for everyone.

  It was a small place with black and white tile floors and dark wooden chairs. Large antique lamps hung from the high ceilings. Many of the tables were empty now, the morning rush over; but the stale tobacco smell lingered just below the stronger scents emanating from the kitchen.

  Ignacio’s words were the only ones attempting to fill the stillness. He chattered on about current events, the difficulties of the new government, the military’s 1980 Constitution. But soon he, too, fell quiet, his words punctured, one by one, on the pointed sharpness of the silence. Doña Sara reached again for Eugenia’s hand.

  “I can see why my son fell in love with you,” she said, her voice ragged. “You are a beautiful woman.”

  Eugenia choked on the accustomed thank-you, shook her head, and fumbled through her purse for a tissue. She blew her nose, then wiped the wetness, along with most of the powder and blush, from her cheeks.

  “Even lovelier without makeup,” Sara continued. “Manuel hated the way the girls at his school put on makeup.”

  Samuel put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Sarita,” he said, “you know Manuel hated everything about the rich kids at his school. He didn’t like being rich.”

  “The first time we met was at a demonstration,” Eugenia said. “We argued at first.”

  Sara smiled. “He liked people who stood up for themselves. Especially women, I think.”

  “He really cared for my sister Irene, too,” Eugenia said. “Irene is a very powerful and independent woman.” Her voice broke.

  “Perhaps we can continue this after the appointment,” Ignacio intervened. “Eugenia, we went over your testimony in Boston; there won’t be any surprises. But we just need the full story entered for the record, in the presence of the family members who brought the case.” He scraped his chair back slightly. Sara raised her free hand.

  “Just one moment, please,” she said. “I need to make sure, before we go back there, that Eugenia understands something. Hija,” she continued, squeezing the younger woman’s hand, her voice shaking a little. “I must tell you that, several months before Manuel came to Santiago, I told him he was no longer welcome in my house. He had just been out all night, and I was angry. But that was the last time we ever really talked.” She took a breath. “I never understood why he did what he did,” she continued, “just as I never understood why my papa did what he did. With my papa, all I could see was how much it hurt my mama.

  “That morning, after Manuel was out all night. I think that maybe I thought, if I put my foot down, perhaps he’ll understand he can’t treat his loved ones this way. If I show him this now, I can save others in his life some suffering. But that’s not the way it turned out in the end, was it?” Doña Sara stopped a moment, and swallowed some cold espresso. “Every day that goes by … when I remember this, and regret it yet again, I say to myself, the memory and the guilt, is it all worthless? But finding you, being here with you today as you bear witness, knowing that Laura exists … well, I’m thinking that maybe there is still a use for it, all this pain.”

  They put their coats back on and walked out, a drizzle surrounding their heads in a light mist. They approached the Commission building and climbed the stone steps. Ignacio opened the door and led them upstairs into a large room with polished wood paneling, its high ceiling sending waves of cold air down onto their shoulders. Eugenia shivered.

  “Please come in and sit down,” Ignacio said, flipping a switch along the wall that illuminated just enough of the room to show a large mahogany desk and three chairs in front and one in back. He stepped behind the desk and pressed a button, and a young man in a grey suit materialized from a door camouflaged among the wooden paneling and stood next to him, pen poised above his stenographer’s pad. Eugenia and Manuel’s parents sat in the chairs provided, their coats still on to ward off the bone-chilling air of the room. The small gas-powered heater in the corner near the desk coughed and sputtered, almost as if it understood the impossibility of its task. When he spoke, Ignacio’s voice had taken on the same official intonation Eugenia remembered from their conversation in her Boston apartment.

  “As you know, Eugenia,” he said, “even though we have a recording of your testimony in Boston tha
t has already been transcribed and included in the official file for Manuel Bronstein Weisz, we still need for you to summarize, in your own words and in the presence of his relatives who have brought his case before the Commission, what happened to you and Manuel when you were arrested by the military police after the September 1973 coup.”

  Ignacio nodded to the stenographer, who looked expectantly at Eugenia. Doña Sara moved closer to her, the scraping of her chair echoing in the cold room, and took her hand. Eugenia cleared her throat.

  “It was October 7, 1973,” she began. “It was a clear and luminous morning, a bit chilly. A typical spring morning in Santiago.”

  VII

  Belonging Out of Place

  Sunday dawned clear and warm, and by the time Eugenia and Laura were in a taxi on the way to doña Sara and don Samuel’s house, they felt comfortable without their sweaters. Getting out of her mother’s house had probably also helped, Eugenia thought. The chill that had descended on them the day before, when she told doña Isabel that she and Laura had been invited to a barbecue at the Bronsteins’, had been worthy of Antarctica.

  Even doña Isabel knew that, sooner or later, Laura would need to meet her other grandparents. It was more a question of timing, and of the quickness with which they’d made the plans. “Couldn’t you at least wait until after the New Year, Chenyita?” she’d suggested. “We can go down to the farm, spend the holidays. Laurita will love that.”

  Eugenia understood that her mother was still trying to win Laura over. A few weeks in the countryside might even inoculate Laura against the competing grandparents. But the harder doña Isabel tried, the more Laura retreated. And for some reason, her mother simply could not control her comments about Laura’s looks. Even though Eugenia had been unable to find out what had happened the time that Laura had locked herself in her room, she suspected that it had something to do with her mother’s obsession over who Laura might resemble. Since that moment, Eugenia’s own relationship with her daughter had regressed once again to how it had been those last two weeks before they came to Chile, when Laura had simply retired to her room and locked the door, using her Walkman and her music to build a wall between them.

  Thinking back on how little she had thought about Laura’s feelings in her own eagerness to return to Chile, Eugenia had wondered if she should ask her mother to stop mentioning Laura’s looks. Maybe then things would slowly improve. But the minute she considered it, she realized that the old dynamics with doña Isabel were still there, made worse by her own guilt at abandoning her mother. Eugenia knew she could not criticize or correct her.

  After Eugenia had testified before the Commission and met Manuel’s parents, it occurred to her that a connection with Sara and Samuel might help bring her daughter out of her shell. When she telephoned Ignacio to ask his advice, he immediately gave her the Bronsteins’ phone number and urged her to call. “They’re dying to meet Laura,” he said. “But when I suggested to doña Sara that she give you a call, she refused. She felt that you needed time with your own mother, and that you’d be in touch when you were ready. She’ll be thrilled to hear from you.” Eugenia had called the very same day, and they had gotten an invitation to come for lunch the following Sunday.

  Eugenia looked over at her daughter. She seemed almost glued to the opposite corner of the taxi’s back seat, sitting as far away from her mother as she could. She was looking out the window. At least she hadn’t brought along the dreaded Walkman.

  “Are you looking forward to meeting them?” Eugenia asked. After glancing at her mother briefly, Laura shrugged her shoulders and continued looking out the window. “They’re really thrilled we’re coming,” Eugenia continued. Laura rolled her eyes.

  “You met them,” she said. “Do they look like Papa?”

  “Not really, now that you mention it. Neither of them has your papa’s red hair, and they’re both very short. But Grandma Sara’s eyes have a look, when she stares at you very closely, that reminds me of him. And she smells of oranges, too.”

  The taxi continued up Apoquindo Avenue toward the cordillera. Eugenia could see that its majestic peaks were now stripped of snow as the spring thaw came to an end. When the avenue dead-ended at the old Dominican convent, its Sunday artisan fair overrun with bargain hunters, the driver turned right. There, at the corner of the first block, was the house that doña Sara had described. A small bungalow with large picture windows on all sides, it was surrounded by a stucco wall. The blood-red geraniums planted along its top matched the hue of the tile roof.

  “Here it is, on your left.” The cabdriver pulled up to the curb. Still surprised at how cheap cab fares were, Eugenia added a generous tip and they got out and walked up to the gate. The fragrance of barbecue, mixed with honeysuckle and orange blossoms, wafted in their direction.

  The door flew open when Eugenia rang the bell. Doña Sara must have been waiting at the window. “It’s so good to see you.” Doña Sara gave Eugenia a tight hug, then turned to look at Laura. She reached out and took both of Laura’s hands in hers.

  “Laurita,” she said. “Is it all right if I give you a hug?” At Laura’s nod, she took the girl in her arms and held her for a long while. The difference in height was quite dramatic, Eugenia noticed. She wasn’t sure if Laura’s stiffness was due to her need to bend down, or simply to the situation in general. Either way, Laura straightened up with difficulty at the end of the embrace.

  “Well. Come in, come in.” Sara led them back toward the middle of the house, to the indoor patio where Samuel was hovering over the grill. Struggling with two pairs of large tongs, he was attempting to adjust what looked like a small animal across the coals.

  “Shmooti! Look, they’re here!”

  Samuel placed the tongs on a side table and wiped his hands on a towel, then walked toward them with his arms open.

  “So this is Laurita,” he beamed, gathering her up in another hug.

  “Don Samuel,” Eugenia said, “what are you cooking there? It looks like a small lamb, or maybe a goat …”

  Samuel let go of Laura and smiled. “Yes, my dear, you’re almost right. It’s half a goat!” He chuckled at his own joke. “I lived in Argentina as a young man and learned to barbecue Argentine style. This is cabrito, or young goat. Since there are only four of us, I got only half. You are willing to try something a little strange, yes?” he added, turning back toward Laura once again. “At your age everyone has a good appetite.”

  At that point Sara came back out with some crackers and cheese, and a pitcher of red wine sangria. “No, it will be fine,” she clucked at Eugenia’s protest. “Laurita can drink it without a problem, it’s mainly fruit and fruit juice anyway, and we’ll eat something with it.” They sat out in the patio. When the cabrito was ready, doña Sara served it with mashed potatoes and a salad of tomatoes and palm hearts. For dessert she brought out a plate full of snail-shaped pastries that gave off the fragrance of toasted cinnamon.

  “These are my mother’s rugelach,” she said. “I haven’t made them in years and I was never much good at baking, so you’ll have to tell me if they are any good. But they were my mother’s specialty, and Manuel’s favorite …” Doña Sara caught herself, swallowing hard.

  When the plate got around to her, Laura grabbed a cookie and took a huge bite. Luckily her daughter’s sweet tooth was still in working order, Eugenia thought. But she was surprised at the enthusiasm of the comment that followed.

  “Mmmm, abuelita, these are really good,” Laura said. “They taste so great I can’t believe you don’t make them at least once a week. I can see why Papa loved them so much.”

  The bell at the gate chimed softly, and don Samuel got up to answer it. “That will be Tonia,” he said. “We invited her over to have tea with us after lunch. Laurita,” he added, putting out his hand, “I think you’ll like Tonia. Come with me to the gate and meet her. We bring her back to your mama.”

  As Samuel and Laura went off to let Tonia in, Sara came over and sat next
to Eugenia. “Thank you for bringing her to us today,” she said. “You’ve done such a good job with her, she’s absolutely beautiful.”

  “Ah! Finally I meet these two famous women!” The deep, booming voice belonged to a large woman with very broad shoulders. Her walnut-colored face was framed by delicate wisps of salt and pepper, timid refugees from the large black bun perched on the top of her head. Eugenia barely had the time to stand up before she felt herself disappear into Tonia’s embrace.

  “Let me see you,” Tonia said, setting Eugenia free in a trail of burnt wood and rosemary. “You are just as I imagined,” she continued. “But the most beautiful woman here is your daughter.” Tonia turned to face Laura. “And, if truth be told, she looks more like the first Chileans than any of you.” She laughed softly. “In fact, Laurita, you have just the kind of hair and complexion to show off what I brought for you.” Reaching into a pocket in the apron she wore over her flowing skirt, she brought out a small cloth bag and shook its contents into her large palm. “Copihues,” she said, holding out a pair of large, brilliant silver earrings for Laura to see. “Take them,” she coaxed in answer to Laura’s sharp intake of breath. “They’re for you. Everyone says they’re the Chilean national flower, and it seemed like a good way to welcome you home. But it’s also true that copihues are a Mapuche flower, because they grow wild in our forests in the south, which is why they have been in our culture for hundreds of years. Go ahead, try them on. Look at yourself in the mirror.”

  Sara took Laura inside, and Samuel and Tonia sat with Eugenia as the fragrance of oranges grew more pungent in the afternoon sun.

  “Tonia is from a small community south of Temuco,” Samuel said. “But she spent years living in Sara’s house when they were both girls.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Tonia laughed, “before I finally accepted my place in life. I had to welcome my grandmother’s spirit,” she continued. “My grandma would not take no for an answer.”