Meet Me Under The Ombu Tree

by Santa Montefiore

  Santi and Sofia barely exchanged words as she sat and talked the hours away with his sister and mother, but they were very conscious of the other’s presence. The women laughed about the adventures they had had, one story striking the memory of another, and the years of separation slowly melted away. When they left Maria asleep in her brightly decorated room full of flowers Sofia felt as if they had never been parted.

  ‘You know, Chiquita, it is so good to see Maria again,’ she said as they entered the sitting room. ‘I’m glad I came.’

  ‘It has done Maria the world of good. She missed you so much. I think you have given her the will to live perhaps a little longer.’ Sofia embraced her aunt. The fear and uncertainty of the last few months had eaten away at Chiquita’s spirit and stretched her emotions to their limit. She was as fragile as a twig.

  ‘You and your family are what Maria cherishes. You give her the will to live. Look how happy she is to be at home. Her final days will be peaceful and full of joy.’

  ‘You’re so right, my dear Sofia,’ and then she looked at her through her tears and whispered, ‘and what are we going to do with you, eh?’

  ‘What do you mean? I shall return to my family, of course.’

  Chiquita nodded with understanding. ‘Of course,’ she said gently, but she smiled and her eyes traced Sofia’s features as if she were reading the feelings they betrayed.

  Santi and Claudia were sitting quietly reading magazines. Panchito, now a strapping thirty year old, slouched on the sofa watching television. He reminded her of Santi as a young man. His legs were long and skinny, dangling over the armrest. He had a charisma that Sofia found engaging. Like Dorian Gray, Panchito looked like a younger, flawless image of his brother. His eyes were the same sea-green and yet they lacked the depth of his brother’s. His face was unlined and smooth yet that too lacked the character of Santi’s, whose face showed that he had suffered and survived.

  Sofia looked at Santi and loved him more for his crumpled skin and melancholic eyes. He had once exuded a confidence that believed it could tame the ebb and flow of life and train it to do his bidding. Fate had taught him that one cannot conquer what is out of one’s control; one can only learn to live in harmony with it. Santi had relinquished his arrogance the hard way.

  ‘Santi, bring Sofia a glass of wine - white or red?’ asked Chiquita.

  ‘Red,’ said Santi, automatically answering the question for her. Red had always been Sofia's favourite colour.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied in surprise. Claudia looked up from her magazine and watched her husband pour the wine. Sofia waited for the look of anxiety that was sure to follow, but it never came. If Claudia had minded she made sure she didn’t show it.

  ‘So, Sofia, how long will you be staying?’ she asked, her apathetic blue eyes smiling a little too much in an attempt to hide the fear that trembled behind them.

  ‘I don’t know, I have no plans,’ Sofia responded with a smile of equal sincerity.

  ‘Don’t you have children and a husband?’

  ‘Yes, I do. David’s busy with a play at the moment so he couldn’t come. Anyhow, it would be hard for him, he doesn’t know any of you and he doesn’t speak Spanish. He’s happy for me to stay as long as I want.’

  ‘We all read about you in the papers,’ enthused her aunt. ‘Such a nice picture - you looked beautiful. I still have it somewhere. I’ll pull it out and show you sometime. Yes, I must still have it somewhere.’ Santi brought her the wine. Sofia caught his eye but he didn’t respond. ‘You should have been an actress. You were a prima donna even as a child,’ recalled Chiquita, ‘you were always attracting attention. I’m surprised your husband hasn’t put you in one of his plays! You know, Claudia, she was quite the exhibitionist. I remember a play that was put on at San Andres, Sofia, and you refused to take part because you weren’t the lead. Do you remember, Santi? She must have cried for a week. You said you were better than everyone else.’

  ‘Yes, I remember that,’ he replied.

  ‘She always got her way, Claudia. Poor Paco could never say no.’

  ‘Nor could Grandpa,’ Sofia admitted sheepishly, laughing a little. ‘It used to drive my mother insane the way we’d gang up on her.’

  ‘Now your grandfather - what an extraordinary man he was.’

  ‘You know I still miss him. I miss his humour,’ Sofia said wistfully. ‘I’ll never forget that time he was kept in the intensive care unit at the hospital in Buenos Aires, having contracted some highly infectious disease. God knows what he had, but whatever it was it baffled the doctors. I think it was some sort of amoeba. Do you remember, Chiquita?’ she said.

  Chiquita frowned and shook her head. ‘I don’t believe I do.’

  ‘Well, the doctor said Grandpa was not permitted to leave his room. At one point, he wanted to go to the bathroom and after ringing his bell a couple of times to no effect, he left his room and wandered around the whole floor until he found the bahos. On his return he noticed there was a sign on the door of his room stating that no one, under any circumstances, was permitted to enter without supervision - highly contagious patient within it said. Grandpa decided he couldn’t possibly go in, as he’d be breaking the rules. So what do you think he did? He shuffled off around all the wards, infecting everyone he came into contact with, until he found a nurse to escort him back to his room. Apparently

  he caused a minor panic. Knowing Grandpa O’Dwyer, he would have done it on purpose. They always answered his bell after that.’

  They must have praised the day he left,’ chuckled Santi, shaking his head. ‘I remember the time you fought with Anna and packed your bags and came over to our house, declaring that you wanted Mama to adopt you. Do you remember, Sofia?’ He laughed, the wine dulling his senses and loosening his muscles that ached from having to dissemble his emotions.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to remember that, it’s a bit embarrassing,’ Sofia said awkwardly.

  ‘No, it wasn’t. Santi and Maria were thrilled. They encouraged it,’ said Chiquita.

  ‘What did my parents say about it?’ she asked. She never did get to the bottom of that one.

  ‘Well, let me think.’ Her aunt sighed, narrowing her eyes. ‘Your father . . . yes, Paco came over and got you. I recall he told you there were very nice orphanages you could go to if you didn’t want to live at home. He said you were too much of a handful to sell to any of his family!’

  ‘Did he really?’ Sofia giggled.

  ‘You were always a handful. I’m glad you’ve settled down,’ Chiquita said fondly. All the time Claudia hadn’t spoken. She had just listened.

  ‘She used to play polo with the boys,’ continued Chiquita, nodding her head.

  ‘D/os - it’s been years, literally. I don’t know whether I’d remember how to play.’

  ‘Could you play as well as the boys?’ asked Claudia finally, attempting to join in.

  ‘Not as well as Santi, but definitely as well as Agustin,’ Chiquita said truthfully.

  ‘I wanted to do whatever the boys did. They always seemed to have much more fun than us girls,’ Sofia recalled.

  ‘You were a sort of honorary boy, weren’t you, Chofi?’ smirked Santi. Sofia hesitated. That was the first time she had heard him call her ‘Chofi’. Chiquita pretended not to notice, but Sofia knew she had as her eyes anxiously darted to Santi and then back to her. Of course Claudia kept her composure and sipped her wine as if her husband had said nothing unusual.

  ‘Sofia was such a menace. I am so happy you have settled down, found a nice husband - I knew you would,’ Chiquita said nervously, trying to fill the

  silence.

  Claudia looked at her watch. ‘Santi, we should say goodnight to the children,’ she said tightly.

  ‘Right now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. They’ll be so disappointed if you don’t say goodnight.’

  ‘I really should get back to my parents. It’s been a long day and I’m tired. I’ll see you all tomorrow,’
said Sofia, getting up.

  Claudia and Santi stood up to leave. Santi didn’t kiss her. He just acknowledged her awkwardly before leaving the room, followed by his wife. Chiquita kissed her tenderly.

  ‘Talk to Anna, Sofia,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Sofia.

  ‘Just talk to her. Things have not been easy - for any of you.’

  Chapter 39

  As Sofia wandered slowly back to the house she remembered the many times she had walked this stretch of land. This used to be her home. The smell of eucalyptus hung in the humid air and she could hear the ponies snorting in the fields. The crickets clicked rhythmically - for as long as there had been Argentina she imagined there had been crickets. They were as much a part of the place as the ombu. She couldn’t imagine the campo without them. She breathed in the scents of the pampa and drifted on her memories and bittersweet echoes of her childhood.

  By the time she reached the house she felt sick with nostalgia. She needed time to be on her own, to think. Having expected Santa Catalina to have changed, it was disturbing to find that it hadn’t. She could have been a child again and yet here she was within the body of a mature woman, full of the experiences of another country, another life. Looking about her she realized that Santa Catalina was fixed in a time warp, as if the world outside had not touched it. She wandered up to the pool and walked around it. But the memories cascaded, persisted; everything she set her eyes upon pulled her back to

  the past. The tennis court where she and Santi had so often played loomed out at her through the darkness and she could almost hear their ghostly voices laughing and joking on the breeze.

  Sofia sat by the water’s edge and thought about David. She imagined his expression, his pale blue eyes, the straight aristocratic nose she so often kissed. She imagined those features she loved. Yes, she loved him, but not in the same way that she loved Santi. She knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t crave another man’s arms, another man’s lips, another man’s caresses, and yet she had never ceased to love this human being who was in some strange way attached to her soul. She longed for Santi and her longing choked her. After twenty-three years the hurt was still as raw as it ever had been.

  It was dark when she reached the house. She had calmed down, walked a bit, breathed deeply, all those wise things Grandpa O’Dwyer had taught her to do when her brothers had teased her, leaving her hoarse with fury. She wandered into the kitchen where Soledad greeted her with a taste of dulce de leche mousse before it had set. Placing herself in her usual seat at the kitchen table while Soledad cooked, they chatted as friends. Sofia had to distract herself and

  Soledad was the perfect distraction.

  ‘Señorita Sofia, how could you spend so long away? You didn’t even write to me. What were you thinking of? Did you think I wouldn’t miss you? Did you think I wouldn’t mind? Of course I minded. I felt dejected. I thought you had stopped caring. After all I did for you. I cried for years. I should have been furious. I should be furious now. But how can I be? I’m too happy to see you to be cross,’ she said reproachfully, hiding her face in the steaming cauldron of zapallo soup. Sofia felt desperately sorry for her. Soledad had loved her like her own child and Sofia had barely given her a thought.

  ‘Oh Soledad, I never forgot you. It was just impossible to return. I made my life in England instead.’

  ‘Señor Paco and Senora Anna - they were never the same after you left. Don’t ask me what happened, I don’t like to pry, but things were never the same between them. You left and they fell apart. Everything changed. I didn’t like the change; I didn’t like the atmosphere. I longed for you to come back and you never even wrote. Not a word. Nada!1

  ‘I’m sorry, that was thoughtless of me. Soledad, if I’m honest, and I’ve always been honest with you, it hurt to think of Santa Catalina. I missed you all

  so much, I couldn’t write. I know I should have, but it was somehow easier to try to forget.’

  ‘How can you forget your roots, Sofia? How can you?’ she asked, shaking her grey head.

  ‘Believe me, when you’re on the other side of the world, Argentina seems very far away. I just got on with my life as best I could. I left it too late.’

  ‘You’re as stubborn as your grandfather was.’

  ‘But I’m here now,’ she said, as if in some way that might console her.

  ‘Yes, but you won’t stay. There’s nothing for you here now. Senor Santiago is married. I know you, you won’t stay.’

  ‘I’m married too, Soledad. I have a family to go back to, a husband I adore.’

  ‘But your heart is here with us,’ she said. ‘I know you. Don’t forget, I raised you.’

  ‘What is Claudia like?’ she heard herself asking.

  ‘I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, least of all a Solanas - I’m the Solanas family’s biggest champion. There’s no one loyal like me; otherwise I would have left years ago. But as it’s you I’ll speak my mind. She’s not a Solanas. I don’t think he loves her. I think there’s only one person he’s ever loved. I don’t want to know the details, I’m not one to pry. After you left he wandered around like a ghost. La Vieja Bruja said that his aura was dim. She asked to see him, she would have sorted him out but he has never had an interest in the hidden world. After that dreadful business with Senor Fernando, Senor Santiago began to invite Señora Claudia to Santa Catalina for weekends and he smiled again. I didn’t think he’d ever smile again. Then he married her. I think if she hadn’t come along, he would have given up. Thrown the towel in, just like that. But I don’t think he loves her. I watch things - I see things. Of course, it’s none of my business. He respects her; she’s the mother of his children. But she’s not a soulmate. La Vieja Bruja says you only have one soulmate.’

  Sofia listened to her ramblings. The more she listened, the more eager she was to free him from his desolation. It amused her that Soledad knew so much. She must have heard the gossip from the other maids and gauchos. But she knew their gossip only guessed at the truth.

  Rafael and his wife Jasmina joined Sofia and her parents for dinner on the terrace. Sofia was thankful for their company. Jasmina was warm and sensual, her full body exuded a ripe fertility that the cool Claudia lacked, and Sofia was

  grateful for her earthy humour. She had brought her two-month-old daughter with her in a shawl and proceeded to breastfeed her discreetly at the table. Sofia noticed her mother disapproved but tried hard to conceal her displeasure. Jasmina knew her motherin-law well enough to see the signs, and had the intelligence enough to ignore them.

  ‘Rafa doesn’t want any more children - he says five is enough. I come from a family of thirteen - imaginate!' And she smiled broadly, her pale green eyes twinkling mischievously in the candlelight.

  ‘Really, mi amor, thirteen just isn’t practical these days. I have to educate them all,’ said Rafael, grinning at her lovingly.

  ‘We’ll see. I don’t see any reason to stop,’ she laughed, opening her shirt a moment to check on her feeding child. ‘When they are this small I lose my heart to them. When they get older they don’t need you so much.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said Paco, placing his large, rough hand on Sofia’s. ‘I think if as a parent you build a loving home, your children will always come back to it.’

  ‘You have children, don’t you, Sofia?’

  ‘Yes, two daughters,’ she replied, leaving her hand under her father’s but unlike the old days she was very conscious that it was there.

  lQu pena that you didn’t bring them with you. Clara and Elena would have so enjoyed meeting them. They’d all be about the same age, wouldn’t they, mi amor? And I would be thrilled for them to practise their English.’

  They should practise more with me, Jasmina,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yes, but you know children, you can’t force them to do anything they don’t want to do.’

  ‘Perhaps you should be a little tougher,’ she insisted. ‘Children don’t know what’s bes
t for them.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t bear to upset them. After school hours they are at home, and home is for playing.’

  Sofia could see that this was one conflict her mother was not going to win and she admired the sweet way Jasmina dealt with her. There was leather beneath the sugar.

  Soledad took every opportunity to come out onto the terrace, to serve the food, to take plates away, to bring in the mustard, to fill the water jug, she even popped her head around the door twice under the pretence that she had heard Señora Anna ring the bell. Each time she grinned a wide, incomplete smile. After a while Sofia couldn’t conceal her laughter and had to muffle it into her

  napkin. Soledad was obviously curious to watch her with her parents. She would later go and discuss their reactions with all the other maids on the farm.

  At eleven o’clock Jasmina wandered home with her daughter, disappearing into the park like an angel. Paco and Rafael sat chatting among the flies and moths that had collected around the hurricane lamps. Anna retired to bed protesting that she was old when Paco tried to encourage her to stay. Sofia was happy for her to go as she didn’t know what to talk to her about. She resented her too much to talk about the past and didn’t want to involve her in the present out of spite. Once Anna had gone she felt surprisingly uplifted and found herself slipping into conversation with her brother and father just like the old days. With them she was happy to reminisce. At eleven-thirty she crept away to her room.

  The following day Sofia awoke early due to the time difference. She had slept through the night, a dreamless sleep that even Santi had been powerless to interrupt. She was grateful for that. She’d been exhausted, not only by the flight, but by the emotion. But once she was up she was unable to lie still. She crept into the kitchen, where the white light of dawn illuminated the table and tiled floor. It took her back to those days when she would grab something to eat from the well-stocked fridge before skipping out to practise polo with Jose. Rafael had told her that Jose had passed away ten years before. He had gone and she had never said goodbye. Without Jose Santa Catalina was like a smile with a front tooth missing.